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Some questions that many people don't ask when filling out their college applications, but which really affect the quality of university life:
0. Is the dormitory set up with beds on top and desks below?

1. Do classrooms and dormitories have air conditioning?
2. Is there a private bathroom? If not, how far is the shower room from the dormitory?
3. Are there morning and evening self-study sessions?
4. Is there morning running?
5. What is the requirement for running distance each semester, and can I ride a bike?
6. How long are the winter and summer vacations, and how long is the short semester each year?
7. Does the school allow food delivery? How far is the pickup location from the dormitory?
8. Is the school conveniently located? Is there a subway? Is it in the city center? If not, how long does it take to get to the city?
9. Does the dormitory have a washing machine?
10. How is the campus network?
11. Is there a daily power and internet outage? What time does it start?
12. Are the cafeteria prices high? Is there a risk of finding foreign objects in the food?
13. What are the hot water supply times for showers?
14. Can you ride electric bikes on campus? Where can you charge the batteries?
15. What are the electricity restrictions in the dormitory? Will prohibited electrical appliances be confiscated?
16. Is there a place for overnight self-study?
17. Can freshmen bring laptops?
18. What kind of card is used on campus, and how is the cafeteria consumption handled?
19. Does the school provide students with bank cards?
20. How is the school's supermarket?
21. What is the school's policy on receiving and sending packages? What types of packages can be sent? How far is the package pickup point from the dormitory? What are the working hours of the package pickup point?
22. How many types and how many shared bicycles are there on campus?
23. What is the current situation regarding campus access control?
24. Are dormitory inspections conducted at night? Are dormitories locked? Can latecomers return?

To be supplemented:
The conditions at universities are really not as good as many people imagine, especially in many older campuses. Besides the strength of the school itself, it is still recommended that everyone learn more; otherwise, university life can feel like serving a sentence.

If you see this content, it means you are about to graduate from a single evaluation system and face your first decision in life that is not entirely related to scores—choosing a university. Here is a guide to applying for universities that you may have never seen before (if you have seen it, that’s great). Perhaps it can help you avoid some common pitfalls, or perhaps it cannot, but in any case, I hope it can do a small bit of good.

1. Schools that match your scores
   Once you have your college entrance examination scores and corresponding rankings, you should look for schools or specific majors that are close to your ranking.

You may have some confusion about whether to choose a major or a school. There is no absolute priority in this matter; aside from some schools that have so-called "top majors," the differences among majors at each school (assuming they teach the same content) may not be significant. Therefore, if you are deeply averse to competition and do not want to waste another year on major transfer assessments, you can prioritize matching your major. If you believe you need to maximize your score utilization and can still tolerate a year of competition, and you are confident you can successfully transfer majors, you can prioritize matching schools.

If you are interested in the top majors at the school you plan to attend, or those that do not directly recruit, remember to understand the situation in advance.

If you have no thoughts on your major, please have an idea as soon as possible. If you still have none, then just choose a school; although this may not be a good decision.

However, choosing a school can also be filled with confusion—your choice may be a matter of chance, and the consequences it brings (or, to put it more positively, the future) may not be felt until four years later. Therefore, there is no need to expect to make a 100% optimal decision; just finding a current answer is enough. The rest can only be left to time to answer.

2. Admissions Office
   You will definitely need to consult the admissions office of each school to understand the situation.

Do not trust all the answers given by the admissions office; do not automatically filter out "possibilities," and clarify further questions.

What the admissions office tells you is often just the tip of the iceberg of the university. Relying solely on their answers is far from enough; you need to learn more on your own.

3. What exactly is your chosen major?
   The ultimate answer is: look at the training program.

When you become interested in a specific major at a certain school, please take the time to search for its training program on a search engine to understand what you need to learn during your university life. Please note that the content of similarly named majors may vary significantly between different universities. If you cannot find it, try to ask seniors or the admissions team. If you do not understand the course names or descriptions, you can search a bit to get a brief understanding. However, course names and major names are equally unreliable, but the cost of finding course outlines may be very high, so asking more is a good choice.

If you encounter a major category admission—please be 998244353% cautious. Be sure to ask about the major diversion situation, estimate which major you might be diverted to, and prepare for the worst, especially when there are extremely different majors within a major group. If you need to achieve good grades in your freshman year to transfer to a good major, thus being forced to continue participating in competition during your first year of university, please feel free to compete, as long as you are clear that this may be the last time you rely on this single evaluation system. (For graduate school applications, please make the most of it.)

4. Variables you should really pay attention to
   Should you pay attention to major ratings? Unless the university has stated the resource allocation situation for undergraduates (such as Tsinghua's cross-disciplinary programs, Shanghai Jiao Tong's ACM classes, etc.), other situations probably do not require it. For example, you may not feel much difference between a major rated A- at one school and a major rated C at another school because they may be equally poor.

Should you pay attention to the school atmosphere? Yes, it is important. The overall atmosphere of a school may implicitly shape your future development. The resources, academic tendencies, atmosphere, and various aspects of daily life provided by the school, even the cultural atmosphere, will affect your life and development. Therefore, if possible, ask seniors what their daily lives are like, ask a few more, and then compare.

Is the standard of living important? Yes, it is more important than quite a few things. There is now a very good reference for the standard of living in college, namely colleges.chat, where you can access very detailed information; you can also ask seniors. If there are conditions you cannot tolerate, please be very cautious.

Is the teaching level important? Extremely important, but it is useless. Since you choose to study for your undergraduate degree in China, do not have any expectations for the teaching level. Generally speaking, if you focus on the range from third-tier to first-tier schools, the higher the score, the greater the probability of encountering quality teaching; but if you focus on all 985 schools in such a small range, the teaching quality is highly random. You must be prepared for self-study. Of course, you can still ask seniors about the teaching level—if they only say that a few teachers teach well, then be careful.

(Supplement) Is research level important? Not necessarily. I originally wanted to say it is not important, but now some schools are willing to provide undergraduates with ample real research opportunities, so it depends. Generally speaking, research-related content is not closely related to lower-grade undergraduates, so even if a certain discipline at a university becomes a specialty, it does not prevent its teaching from being poor. At the same time, for undergraduates, research often becomes labor, although learning how to become a qualified labor force is also important, but this may differ greatly from the research life you imagine; also, entering the laboratory early is sometimes not a good thing. Therefore, if you have a strong desire for research, please understand what opportunities your desired school is willing to provide you, and face the reality of research and the academic community in this era rationally.

5. If you have already made a choice
   First of all, congratulations, you can continue to enjoy a happy and carefree summer vacation. Say goodbye to those who make you self-study because this is your last pressure-free summer vacation where you can seriously feel the world. Wasting time learning some general education courses is a pretty bad choice.

Of course, you can also choose to learn some interesting content casually. The content learned during the two months of summer vacation may be covered in two weeks of classes, so it does not matter how much you learn.

Finally, I hope that from now on, you will no longer be a child.