Entering college students commonly complain of being inundated with confusing information about attending a college or university, while student services personnel complain that regardless of the efforts placed on making the information "user friendly," students never seem to assimilate what they receive. This paper analyzes the literature and examines the sequence of time frames within which student decisions are made during their transition to academic life. The review finds six distinct time periods in students' transition to college: (1) the initial inquiry to acceptance; (2) the acceptance to the student's summer orientation visit; (3) the summer orientation visit itself; (4) the student's arrival on campus before classes begin; (5) the student's first semester; and (6) the student's second semester. The review finds that student decision-making processes can be described using information management strategies of prototype-matching and striving-for-future-selves. The paper makes the case that universities and colleges can most effectively present different information and services to students by knowing the particular time period they are in and the particular information-processing strategy being used. Contains 69 references. (GLR)