A College “Fit” Can Be Perfect Until It Isn’t. And Then What?

When your child first starts searching for a college to attend, you quickly begin to hear the term “college fit.”

On one hand, the concept seems very black and white, because it is often defined using concrete categories such as school size, academic programs, cost, and location. A high school student can usually pick designations within these categories fairly easily to begin to narrow down their search.

It’s simple, for example, to find suitable schools if you do an online search or tell a...