[thelist] SQL In need of Optimization....

[Joshua Olson]

What about something like

SELECT
  ColumnOne,
  ColumnTwo,
  ColumnThree,
FROM tblCollegesSearch
WHERE
  EXISTS
    (SELECT Count(MajorID) AS MajorCount
    FROM tblCollegeMajors.CollegeID
    WHERE tblCollegeMajors.CollegeID = tblCollegesSearch.CollegeID
        AND tblCollegeMajors.MajorID IN ('1', '2')
    HAVING MajorCount >= 2)
GROUP BY ColumnOne, ColumnTwo, order by 1,2 desc

The real neat part about this, assuming I syntaxed it correctly for your db,
is that you can change the HAVING clause to represent how many of the majors
at minimum the college must carry.  If they are interested in 3 programs but
the listed colleges only need have 2 of the three, list all three in the IN
clause, but only set the HAVING clause to >= 2.

HTH,

-joshua