(MONEY Magazine) – Like any concerned parent, you want your child to attend a great college. But what makes a school great? Everyone seems to have a different answer to that question. To the heads of major universities, the key is upholding high intellectual standards. "Teaching, learning and research are all equally important elements of the process," says Gerhard Casper, president of Stanford University in California. Adds Harold Shapiro, president of Princeton University in New Jersey: "What matters most is the quality of the faculty and of the student body." By contrast, for many students, a great school is one that offers individual attention or opportunities for personal growth. "I love my relationship with my professors and adviser," says Jodi Beimesche, 21, a senior majoring in communications at 1,050-student Hanover College in rural Indiana. "To them, I have a name. I'm not just a number." But big can be beautiful too. At the 34,362-student University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, Prabal Chakrabarti, 20, says: "I expected an experience that would encourage me to think about other people's viewpoints -- and that's what I've found. Every minority is represented here." The junior electrical engineering major adds: "I've come out a more mature person as a result." At MONEY, we take the point of view of the person paying the bills. Thus we look for great values: schools whose prices are lower than you'd expect them to be, based on the resources they provide and the success of their students. Beginning on page 12, you'll find profiles of our top 10 college buys -- the schools that, according to our fourth annual analysis, give you the most for your dollars. (For an explanation of our methodology, see page 20.) Consider, for example, four of our top-ranked schools. New College, which beat out Houston's Rice University to become No. 1 for the first time, is a tiny (500 students) liberal arts institution in Sarasota, where students enjoy small classes and loads of personal attention from the faculty, all for bargain state school prices (tuition and fees are $7,943 for out-of-staters). Rice, No. 2, is a nationally recognized learning center with professors who are stars in their fields. But a low student/faculty ratio of 9 to 1 keeps class sizes small, and a jumbo endowment helps keep tuition and fees ($9,650) down to little more than half that of comparable private universities. Despite its modest tuition and fees ($5,934 for out-of-staters), Trenton State College (No. 4) achieves above-average scores on most of our measures. And the California Institute of Technology (No. 5) more than justifies its high tuition and fees ($16,110) with an extraordinarily gifted faculty, some of the world's best research facilities and entering students with exceptionally high average SAT scores (1,413 vs. the national average of 899). Of course, you're looking not just for a school that's great but one that's also right for your child. And that will take some effort. No one ranking can steer you straight to the perfect school, and you can't simply rely on the colleges' slick brochures and fast-paced videos. Before your family starts its search, your child should have a clear sense of what he or she wants. His academic interests, career goals and social style will influence how happy he'll be at a given school. But getting a restless 16-year-old to focus on these topics can be difficult. (To learn how one family handled the problem, see "Helping Our Daughter Find Her Way" on page 104.) Begin by raising a few basic questions with your son or daughter: How far away from home do you want to be? Do you want a small, nurturing school that emphasizes teaching -- or a more lively, diverse, large campus? Would you rather be in a quiet, rural setting, or in a big city, with the attendant stimulation and stress? If your child already knows what he or she wants to study, you should look for a school that is strong in that area. But since students frequently change majors, a liberal arts institution with strengths in many departments may be your best bet. Once you settle on the general characteristics of a suitable school, your child should meet with the high school guidance counselor, consult guidebooks and talk to acquaintances in college to compile a list of a dozen or so schools that seem to fit the bill; ideally, you'll reach this stage early in the spring of your child's junior year in high school. Your son or daughter should call or write the college admissions offices for course catalogues and whatever other printed information is available; for phone numbers, see the listings that begin on page 68. A course catalogue can help you learn whether or not a college's curriculum covers a wide range of subjects in depth. And the catalogue can also give you an idea of how structured the school's academic program is -- must students take required courses in several different fields, for example, or can they devise their own courses of study? When your child has narrowed the field to a half-dozen top picks, visit as many as possible, preferably while classes are in session. "I'm horrified at the number of students who show up on a campus in the fall with parents ready to pay $100,000 or so for an education at a place that they have never visited," says Sandra Lovinguth, vice president of the Foundation for Independent Higher Education, a group of 600 private colleges. And don't settle for just the standard two-hour tour, says Lovinguth. Cover the campus and the surrounding area on your own. Walk through the library in the evening. Are people studying or socializing? Spend an hour or two at the student center soaking up the atmosphere and talking to students about the school. Ask them how hard it is to get into popular courses. Do senior faculty teach at the freshman and sophomore level? Are there plenty of seminars, or mainly large lecture courses? Then sit down with an admissions officer and get answers to these questions: What percentage of undergrads with normal course loads earned degrees in four or five years? What percentage of the students go on to graduate school? Ask for the college's dropout rate and the reasons cited by students for leaving. While you may have to press admissions officers for this information, the comments of departing students can alert you to potential problems. And learn all you can about living arrangements: Ask what percentage of the students live off-campus, and whether freshmen are guaranteed campus housing. If your child may be forced to live off-campus, check out possible housing before he or she enrolls. Ask the admissions office to arrange a free weeknight stay for your child in a residence hall. That will give your son or daughter a taste of dorm life and another chance to quiz students about the school. For an inside view of the campus, read several issues of the campus newspaper, looking in particular for items about racial incidents, sexual harassment, overcrowded classrooms and other problems that officials may be reluctant to discuss fully. Does all that seem like a lot of work? Just remember this: If your search uncovers a college that's great for your child, it will have been well worth the effort.