In the classroom of Plum High School social studies teacher Ron Sakolsky is this advice from Albus Dumbledore, the wise but fictional headmaster in the Harry Potter books:

Dan Marsula, Post-Gazette illustration Click image for larger version. Making Choices: College students must choose classes wisely For some students, a career starts in high school Choosing where and with whom you live are key Author says student have more choices about social, moral lives 'Nontraditional' students shouldn't feel out of place Find the most practical route to the right job When a college is a bad fit children Our readers' advice to the college-bound (With exclusive online content)

"It is not our abilities that identify us. It is our choices."

Students today face a wide range of choices.

This special "Making Choices" section focuses on some important choices, from high school course selection to binge drinking.

The answers to these and many other questions will help to define -- and identify -- who each student may become.

Making choices isn't easy.

And sometimes it's not very scientific. Some just go with the gut. Some might use a combination of heart and logic. Others will write huge lists of pros and cons.

One of the problems is that while it may be clear how much money or other factors are involved, it's hard to quantify things like happiness and stress, said Julie Downs, research faculty of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University.

And sometimes the data can be inaccurate, irrelevant or unavailable, such as having too little or misleading information about an offered class.

When Dr. Downs was an undergraduate at the University of California at Berkeley, she had to choose between a class on Buddhist psychology and one on judgment and decision-making.

"I took Buddhist psychology, which turned out to be a terrible class,'' she said. She chose the class because it just sounded interesting.

"That was a dumb decision. I made zero effort to find more information,'' Dr. Downs said.

Tom Cline, associate professor of marketing at St. Vincent College, said students choosing a school usually go through a two-step process.

The first step is eliminating all schools that don't fit particular criteria -- such as distance from home or religious affiliation -- in the same way that a car buyer who wants a four-wheel drive will eliminate all other models.

In the second stage, students compare the remaining choices, a process in which the parent moderates, vetoing or encouraging certain choices.

"The students are researching for a broad choice of majors. They're researching for physical amenities, good athletic training or good dorms, good social setting.

"The parents are looking at academic quality and job placement and safety,'' Dr. Cline said.

The campus visit can be critical because by then the list has narrowed. About 60 percent of those who visit St. Vincent end up enrolling.

In the end, the decision-making process can become a compromise, Dr. Cline said.

Sometimes students need a little extra help.

While Dr. Cline did well enough in architecture to graduate 11th in his class from the University of Virginia in 1984, he changed his career course after a trusted professor essentially told him he wasn't good enough to make a living in the highly competitive field.

Now he enjoys architecture as an avocation and has no regrets about studying it in the first place or about changing direction.

"One of the biggest problems in decision-making is we don't look for disconfirming information,'' he said.

When friends simply say how wonderful you are, he said, "It's ego-gratifying, but it usually leads to bad decisions.''

There are many ways to make important decisions.

Some will use a rule of thumb -- heuristics -- based on something already in memory, said Dr. Downs.

Say a student who is a football fan has heard often of a college because of its football team. That student may associate the team with the strength of the college itself and be less likely to choose a college he or she hasn't heard of.

Or maybe the student decisionmaker engages in "discounting," that is, figuring something in the future isn't as valuable as the present.

"That's something that comes up in deciding whether to party or study," said Dr. Downs.

She said students need to halt the process, realize they probably won't feel like studying tomorrow either, and plan the study time in. The tricky part of that is people tend to estimate too little time for a task.

There also are philosophical ways to look at decision-making.

At Duquesne University, James Swindal, philosophy chairman, teaches students about several philosophical theories of decision-making, including instrumental theory, where every action is seen as a means to an end.

"They want to make money, so they're going to go to college. They might ignore their most intrinsic or immediate interests in terms of more long-range interests,'' said Dr. Swindal.

That student might choose a more practical major than one close to the heart, but he said the core course requirements at college will force students to take a broader array of courses than just the most practical ones.

"A lot of us don't know what we really want long-term,'' he said. "That's why a college forces them to be exposed to other things.''

As an undergraduate at Seattle University, where he graduated in 1978, Dr. Swindal majored in political science, thinking it could lead him to law school.

"I found that wasn't where my heart really was. I was forced to take philosophy classes as part of the core requirements. At first, I didn't want to take philosophy, but I had to take three or four of them. By nearly the end of my senior year, I knew that was much more my long-term desire,'' he said.

Dr. Swindal said another philosophical theory is to look at what is immediate in making a decision.

Say a student had a great high school experience and enjoyed chorus and the friends in music.

"I'll choose a college based on trusting that experience and wanting to make that experience more intense for me,'' Dr. Swindal said.

And some make an intuitive decision, like the student who decides the campus just feels right.

Many who make decisions use a combination of these or other techniques.

But there's plenty of art to this science.

"The more I've lived my life and taught philosophy, the more I think it's pretty mysterious how most people make their choices,'' said Dr. Swindal.