Trying to decide which school of higher learning is the best for you? Trying to choose between Harvard, Yale and Princeton? Trying to figure out which college or university will be your bridge into the 21st century?

Picking a college or university is probably one of the most important decisions you’ll make during our lifetime. And, while professional ethics prohibit us from recommending one school over another, we can help you make that decision by highlighting the factors that you should consider before sending off that first tuition check.

First of all, when considering a school, you want to check out their concert-to-class hour ratio, otherwise stated as the number of concert hours vs. the number of total class hours per semester. Ideally, this should be somewhere over 90 percent, preferably 99 percent or higher, meaning that for every hour spent in the classroom, more than 60 minutes will be spent seeing acts like the Pixies or Dinosaur Jr. Sure that’s a steep curve, but nobody said college was easy.

But the number of shows per semester should only be part of the decision-making process, for good acoustics should also be considered when choosing a college. You have to take a long, hard look at a school’s concert facilities and consider how Green Day will sound playing in that gym, or how Handsome Boy Modeling School will come off playing in that student union or in the school’s courtyard. Needless to say, many promising academic careers have been utterly destroyed by poor acoustics. Don’t let it happen to you.

Finally, when choosing a college or university, you must consider campus concert security. Will school officers allow you to climb up on stage and throw yourself into the audience during a Judas Priest show? Will campus cops look the other way when you’re stumbling out of the gym with a beer in your hand after a Social Distortion concert? Will security at least give you a few moments to drunkenly dance with Avril Lavigne before they haul your sorry butt off the stage? Good security, like good concerts, is often a deciding factor when it comes to choosing a college, and most fraternities keep massive databases, not only of what is allowed, but also detailed records as to what students have gotten away with in the past. Use these databases wisely.

While these are some of the more important points one must consider when choosing a college or university, other factors also come into play. Does the school have reputable concert counselors? Will a professor let you slide a couple of days on your term paper or thesis if Nine Inch Nails is playing on campus the night before the paper’s deadline? Is the grading curve for testing adjusted to allow for the lack of available study time due to Peter Murphy or Elvis Costello appearing on campus within the three days leading up to exams? All of the above factors must be considered when choosing a school.

Picking a college or university is probably one of the most important decisions you will ever make. Sure, some schools may emphasize learning over seeing shows by Oasis or Drowning Pool, but simply put; the time spent socializing with other students while seeing a good show, is much more valuable than the time spent sitting in a classroom listening to some professor drone on about something that only he or she cares about in the first place. The choice is clear when it comes to picking a school. Will it be night after night of quality entertainment like Rilo Kiley, Lifehouse and Arcade Fire? Or will it be endless lectures, difficult tests and countless hours spent reading dull and dusty text books? The answer should be obvious.