How to choose between two universities when you like them both equally

As you know, I've been pondering this question for the last ten days, since my final offer came through.  I've finally made a decision, but I'm going to keep you in suspense a while longer.

My quest to make this decision has involved a huge amount of googling, visiting both universities again, asking everyone I know etc. and I thought it might be helpful to do a post about HOW I decided in case anyone else trying to make the same decision ever comes across this blog.

There are two strands to making a difficult decision like this: logical and emotional.

LOGICAL

• Visit both your university choices again, if you can.  I had already been to an open day and an interview at one and an interview at the other, but the experience of visiting a place when you want to go there is utterly different to visiting a place when you know you can go there.  I was really surprised at how my feelings had changed from the day of interview.  However, unless you're lucky, this will not make the decision easy.  I had expected to feel, "Oh this is the one!" and that didn't happen.  However the extra information did help me eventually make a decision.
• When you visit, try to collar existing students and talk to them about the university and their experience, and ask any questions you may have.  I lurked outside halls of residence at one of my choices, as I hadn't had a chance to see them, and asked people coming in and out what they thought of them.  At one uni, I went to the student union and sat in the bar, listening in to the students' conversations. This is more helpful than you might think.
• Write a pros and cons list.  I did mine in Excel.  Afterwards I realised that a straight pros and cons list is unhelpful as you're not comparing like with like.  I redid it, writing a list of what factors were important and weighted the different options.  For example, "course sounds really interesting" is more important to me than "has nice sports facilities".  I then gave everything a score out of ten for each university and multiplied it by the weightings.  Pay particular attention to how you feel when you see the final results.  If you feel disappointed that one of them has 'won', that should tell you something.

Here's the list I used, yours may be different:

Prestige of university

Interest level of course

Quality/friendliness of teaching staff

Setting a good example to Amber

Available facilities

Convenience of attending lectures

Opportunity for further study/working abroad in future

Teaching of soft skills to become well-rounded dietitian

Sports facilities

Smaller lectures/less students in the year group

Experience of being a student

Societies

Halls of residence nice/convenient

Excellent research

Convenience of travel to placements

Cost

Level of academic pressure/workload

Travel time

Work/life balance

Support for mature students

Ease of getting a job afterwards

EMOTIONAL

• Phone/email/talk to everyone you know and ask them what they would do if they were you.  Your mileage may vary with this one.  Expect some people to feel strongly you should go to one and others to feel strongly you should go to the other.  Remember it is YOUR decision and YOU have to live with it so other people's opinions only go so far.  Having said that, friends and family came up with factors I hadn't previously thought of and some of the comments people made really did influence my decision, so I think overall it's worthwhile.
• Read articles about decision-making.  I found this Tiny Buddha one particularly helpful as it has lots of different ideas.  Not all of them were helpful, just pick and choose what works for you.
• Go to the university websites and read the bits of them you've never bothered to look at before.  I'd read everything there was to read about the course, the department and the lecturers, but had never looked at the accommodation guide, the student union pages, the societies I could join, the mature students pages.  Do that - sometimes the small things add up.
• Spend a few days actively trying not to think about it.  Your mind needs time to process all the information.  At the end of last week I had exhausted all the logical things and most of the emotional ones but I still hadn't made up my mind.  A few days of not letting the decision rule my every waking moment provided clarity.
• Pay attention to your emotional reaction.  If you find yourself getting defensive about one of your choices when people suggest you should go to the other, or daydreaming about things you might do if you were at that university, or feeling any kind of pull towards one or the other -- those feelings count.  So much of difficult decisions comes down to gut feeling.  Ignore it at your peril.

Finally, remember that no decision is wrong.  You're fortunate to be in a position to be able to choose between two places you like; many many people have no offers or only one offer.  Whichever one you choose, you'll almost certainly have a great time.  Good luck deciding!