Building the shortlist: from forty universities to eight

Cut on the hard constraints first: they are objective, they do not require taste, and each one removes a lot of names at once. Soft preferences come last, when only a handful of candidates remain.

The order of cuts

1. 1Money. Remove anything the family cannot fund and that offers no aid you could realistically win. This usually halves the list in one pass.
2. 2Subject requirements. Remove anything that demands a Higher Level subject or test you do not have and cannot get in time.
3. 3Grades. Compare your predictions with the published typical offer. Below it by more than two points, keep one as a reach at most.
4. 4Course content. Read the year-one module list for each survivor. This cut is the most informative and the one most people skip.
5. 5Place. Only now consider city versus campus, climate, distance and how often you could fly home.

What the final list should look like

Six to nine universities, spread across reaches, matches and safeties, all affordable under some realistic scenario and all somewhere you would actually go. If a name on the list makes you feel nothing, it is doing no work and costs you an essay.