I got really lucky, because my aunt invited me and my cousin (who graduated from HS the same year I did) to spend a weekend with her during my junior year, just reading through college books and visiting local campuses and getting a good feel for what what we wanted out of a school, and what our options were. And then my senior year, another aunt gave me the early graduation present of a plane ticket, so that I would have the opportunity to visit the two East Coast schools to which I'd applied. I'd never have gone to Bryn Mawr without either of those experiences -- certainly it was more helpful than anything my high school did, where it was just assumed that a student with good grades would apply to one of the better state schools, and everyone else would start at the local junior college. I wish every HS student could have that kind of support.