Featuring Reena G. Kamins, director of admissions, List College (New York, NY)

Q. What's the best way to find out about school-specific scholarships and awards?

A. Most schools highlight this information in their viewbooks and discuss it in greater detail on their Web sites. If, however, you feel you're not getting enough information from those sources, call the admissions office. While the financial aid office is the greatest resource for need-based financial aid questions, merit awards are generally determined by the admissions office. That's why they are the perfect ones to tell you the criteria for each award, the number of awards offered, if early decision candidates are eligible, whether the award is renewable, etc.

Keep in mind also that many schools do not require separate applications for merit award consideration. Therefore, you will want to include all of your achievements and extra curricular activities on your admissions application. For example, if you list all of your volunteer work, it might alert the committee to later consider you for a community service award. Or, if you've been very involved with theater, it might prompt them to consider you for an art award.

Q. I'd like to attend a religiously affiliated school. What types of questions should I ask about a school's beliefs, and how can I best conduct my search?

A. Before starting your search, consider the school environment in which you want to study. Every school, within each faith, will offer a different combination of criteria. If, for instance, you want to attend a "Jewish school," does that mean you want to be amongst a large percentage of Jews? How about becoming an active Hillel member? Maybe you're interested in a Judaic studies curriculum? You'll only be certain of such answers when you question yourself and your needs first.

Once you have determined what you want, begin campus visits. If you want to be on a campus where most students frequent prayer services, you need to see it for yourself. You may read in a guidebook that 80 percent of the students are Jewish or Catholic, but that will not tell you how many of them regularly attend services. Similarly, you may read that 50 percent of the campus identifies as Catholic, but there may only be 10 members of the Catholic Student Association.

While visiting these schools, it's important to speak to students who are involved with religiously affiliated organizations. You need to know if they feel supported by the administration or if there are tensions between students who observe a particular religion and those who do not. You'll also want to speak to students who are not affiliated with any religious group on campus. What are their thoughts? Do they seem like people with whom you could be friends?

The decision to attend a religiously affiliated school is a tough but well respected one. In order to ensure four years of happiness, you need to determine what you want and seek out schools that can give it to you.

Q. When embarking on a campus tour, how can I make the most of my time?

A. In order to maximize your campus tour, you must have clear-cut and specific areas to investigate. For instance, if you are particularly anxious about whether you will like a school's professors, sit in on some classes. Do so in different disciplines in case you want to be a psychology major but actually end up studying English literature. You need to feel comfortable and impressed with a university's entire faculty, not just one or two professors. While you are in class, observe the scholastic environment. Do students appear enthusiastic about learning or bored beyond belief? Are there 75 students in the classroom even though the college viewbook says the average class size is 30?

Nervous about making friends? Walk through the student center and see if anyone welcomes you, or sit in the campus caf� and see how people react to you. If you are a sports enthusiast, spend some time in the gym or try to attend a sporting event to see what school spirit is like. Like other parts of the search process, you'll need to identify what is important to you and then investigate. If your tour guide is wearing an outfit you dislike, that is not a good reason to reject that school. But, if your tour guide (and everyone else you encounter) can't speak positively about his or her experiences, that may be a reason to think twice.

While on campus, you should feel that there is a balance between what you have heard or read about the school and how students actually are. If there is a good balance, chances are you will be happy and successful there.

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