Hi,
First time parent to college confidential here! This looks like a great forum with lots of information and resources.
As someone who is starting the process, I was wondering if there are any websites/mobile apps that you found particularly helpful in helping my daughter narrow down her target list and also helping her manage all the deadlines and to-do list? I don’t know which is going to be the hardest part so looking for all the help I can get.
Thanks!
Lots of us use spreadsheets to manage the process. Good to realize now that there are a lot of action items and deadlines. 
You might consider a Google docs spreadsheet you can share with your kid.
Also, it can be quite helpful to set up a separate email account given to colleges and in applications that you both have access to. Then critical stuff like requests for more financial info doesn’t get missed.
Regarding picking schools, a Fiske Guide to Colleges book can be helpful. Other posters – is the CC search tool up at the moment?
We started by trying to identify some geographical, size and other preferences. Once we identified some parameters, we used Naviance and College Board to identify some schools of interest. Then we used the schools’ websites, Common Data Sets, and sites like Niche to try and get a better feel for the school, S’s chances of admission, and affordability.
Now that we are in the thick of the college application process, I use tables in a word document to keep track of deadlines, required submissions, etc. I also have a multi pocket folder to keep copies of the application to each school, any important documents we get from them during the application process, etc. And we have an email address just for college stuff. That has come in handy because so many communications from the schools are via email. We have the inbox divided into folders for each school, so we can slide emails into folders very quickly.
We started by looking at schools that we could afford, based on expected merit and that offered a good program for their intended major. I’ve had too many friends waste time and money applying and visiting schools that were not affordable and dealing with telling kids that their “dream” school was unaffordable after acceptance. Not a fun place to be!
What year is your daughter?
For us, Naviance was a great search tool and it helped to be able to compare S18s stats with other accepted students from prior years at his school. We then spent a lot of time on the school websites for those that came up in the search. And spent time stalking on CC.
I acted a bit like his administrative assistant and started a spreadsheet as we identified possible colleges. Started out with 20 schools (yikes), narrowed to 7-9 (depending on EA results we may apply to last 2). At first, we just filled in basics on spreadsheet about avg GPA/SAT, size, location, notes from any visits. Then, if he decided he would be applying, we added particulars about EA/RA deadlines, if they had supplemental essay, interview, tuition&fees, etc.
We did not do a separate email address. He uses his school address. I think that works ok. One less place to check.
Run the net price calculators on some college web sites to get an idea if need-based financial aid may result in a doable net price. If there are not yet any particular colleges, try your state flagship, a local state university, a local private school, and other schools that pop up in your mind as being suitable for your kid. If need-based financial aid is not sufficient, the student needs to aim for large enough merit scholarships, and reach/match/safety assessments must be made on the scholarships, not admission.
Agree with post #5–that is KEY. Find out what the costs for your in-state schools are and which schools have agreements with your state to reduce tuition (like Western Undergraduate Exchange and similar), if you don’t have unlimited funds to spend on college for this child and any other children you may have.
Especially consider future education beyond a bachelor’s degree, as many people do get a master’s or professional degree, which cost more and should be considered as well.
Note that the parental financial planning is best done, and the student informed of the parental contribution limit, before the student makes the application list. Otherwise, the risk is that most or all of the schools that the student gets admitted to will be unaffordable, a situation that could be avoided if the student makes the application list knowing what the price limits are beforehand.
Figure out finances first! We have twin juniors and I wished we’d known a lot earlier about net price vs sticker price, EFCs and all the variables, tuition exchange, what chasing merit actually entails, etc. Fortunately we knew our budget was limited and communicated that to our kids early. As a result they have never dreamed of OOS privates (or OOS publics!) that we could never in a million years afford. If you have more than 1 child, figure out ahead of time how you will want to handle that financially.
Run the NPC for the schools on the broad list and keep the ones that are within budget. We are in the process of expanding our list because our in-state options are pretty limited. I’ve learned a lot here on CC about schools and programs within schools that I never knew about. Beyond budget, you and your child will need to figure out what is a top priority (programs, location, type of school, a particular sport, religious affiliation, etc). This process has been really different with each of my children, and enlightening.
We’re using spreadsheets to manage major deadlines, in a Google sheet so everyone can make changes and check up on it. Good luck! Fortunately there is a lot of help and support here.
If you are looking for an initial download, you could look at college results org. as it contains a lot of information on multiple tabs. From there you could add tabs or combine with other information from college data or other websites manually. Also if you like analytics, we were able to find a blank template where you could plug in data and give percentages for each section based on importance. The spreadsheet then calculates a bottom line score. We didn’t use it exclusively, but if you like stats, it’s fun to play with and can be used to rate things like cost, fit, location, etc. We added rows underneath to help track important info such as application and scholarship deadlines, comments from visits, and test requirements.
^But if your student is strong, OOS privates CAN (in a few cases) be cheaper than OOS publics. And that brings up another issue – it is really hard to do much searching without standardized test scores in hand. You should target having your daughter finish her testing junior year (and leave enough time for study/retest that year if she isn’t happy with her scores). It is so much easier to identify target schools with that information in hand. It is easy to visit a lot of schools that aren’t really going to work without that info, too.
Most of our work started junior year of high school.
I say “our” because it was definitely a team effort. She picked her major, which narrowed down her school choice considerably, as well as staying in-state/within a few hours. I did a lot of preliminary research, with her blessing, and together we looked online at the 10-12 I found that fit the bill. From there we got a list of 7 that we visited last summer (the summer before senior year).
I also attended the application/financial aid seminars for seniors at her high school when she was a junior, just to have an early heads-up. That’s how I heard there was a new transcript service, and was able to set that up over the summer.
Also last summer, I ran the NPCs on those 7, as well as started researching the FAFSA and other financial information. Can you tell I’m a researcher by trade, lol? She also started her essays over the summer for the Common App. All though high school she’d kept track of her service hours and activities, and she already had a resume from applying for jobs.
She had finished applying September 1. That worked for us because we both knew she’d have very little time once school and other stuff started.
College Confidential has been invaluable for us in all of this. Don’t know the answer to a question? Someone here does.
Other sites not mentioned that are helpful:
College Navigator – this is a government-run site that tells you several helpful things. 1) the NET PRICE FOR YOUR INCOME BRACKET on average. This is no substitute for the NPC on college websites, but it can help you narrow things down a bit before running the NPCs. Vassar, for example, has the same approximate sticker price as Ithaca. But Ithaca’s average net price for a family making $48K per year is several times higher than Vassar’s price. Instead of running NPCs on several colleges, College Navigator can help you figure out if a school is remotely in the ballpark. 2) the programs tab can help you figure out how much activity is in your daughter’s area of interest. A school’s website might say that they have a jazz program. College Navigator will show, maybe, that 1 person a year takes that major. How can your daughter actually do jazz in that program if she’s the only one? Alternately, if she is the only person that year taking Italian and she’s on the cusp for that school, but has stellar talent in Italian, the italian department may lobby to accept her.
Prepscholar – if you google that word plus the name of college, it will quickly tell you the basic scores needed for that school. Also, my daughter liked their SAT review program.
Khan Academy – great for free SAT review
Collegedata – basically is a site with the common data sets of the various schools. If you google name of school and collegedata you can pull up lots of helpful info, like what percentage students are offered merit, does the school have lots and lots of Greek life, and THE AVERAGE TOTAL DEBT for each student. This with College Navigator is a good general indicator of whether you can afford the school, before the NPCs.
Googling name of school plus “common data set” will bring you to each school’s list of stats. While Collegedata has one recent common data set, it doesn’t have the history. You may want to compare whether a given school’s application numbers, for example, are increasing or decreasing and other historical stats.
Someone mentioned niche. Google name of school plus niche. Scroll down and you’ll see in a nutshell what students think of their own school. They describe the school in just a few words. My family was wary of any school the kids described as “work hard play hard” for example. You can see how much Greek life affects the student atmosphere. Also you can see how stressed out the student body feels. Some kids thrive on stress, others find it daunting and want something more homey.
Also you can google the list of Schools that have taken the pledge to not overwhelm their students with debt
Thie list is old, but it’s a good starting point – https://ticas.org/sites/default/files/pub_files/financial_aid_pledges_to_reduce_student_debt_2009-10_0.pdf
There’s also a list of 63 colleges that have pldged no debt – google for it.
If you don’t have naviance yet, you can google for a graph of accepted/ rejected candidates by typing name of school and graph. Hit images.
Also, since you have a daughter, may I gently suggest looking at the womens’ colleges? Many young women say at first: I don’t want to go to a school with all women. That’s a common response, but inaccurate. First many women’s colleges are some of the top LACs in the country. Second, several of them have cross registration and/or are part of consortia. This allows their students to go to other top schools for classes and for the young men to come to their top school for classes. Third, boys are allowed to stay over in dorms, often, just as in co-ed schools. Fourth, some of the womens’ colleges offer excellent need-based and/or merit aid. Here is a list of schools you may want to consider:
best of luck
What year is your student? That will affect timeline.
Another strong vote for spreadsheet, and specifically Google sheet or similar that can be group edited.
a. Tab for Net Price of all colleges any interest and kept unaffordable ones on there to remind they were unaffordable.
b. Tab for test scores with dates
C. Tab for ECs and other data needed for common app
D. Tab for deadlines for admission, financial aid, and merit with trackers for progress.
You could consolidate on one sheet but I prefer tabs.
We visited colleges when we were in an area starting sophomore year. Some argue against this but we saved a ton of money. Visiting family? Draw a circle and hit colleges. We knew we were moving multiple states so hit local schools before they weren’t local, etc.
YouTube has a wealth of info both official from school admissions and from students and parents. Some students have filmed and posted admission tours. Not high quality but still helpful in some cases. The more you narrow your list before paying for visits, the better. Junior year is getting year for visits. Summer is easier but visiting when school is in session has benefits.
Buy a used copy of Fiske College Guide. We used ours extensively. It’s published every year. Buy a copy one to three years old a an online used bookstore.
Identify one or two reaches, three or four matches, and bets case two safeties. A safety is both guaranteed admission based on stats and affordable whether guaranteed merit or simply cheap enough.
I did not find the CC tool helpful in this regard because it kept saying reach schools were a match because D’s stats were at 75 percentile. That doesn’t make it a match for top schools that are a reach for everyone.
We didn’t do a lot of this. It all sounds overwhelming so just want to add a more old-fashioned point of view I am 10m years out and Naviance wasn’t even being used by our school yet…I did keep a “chart” on deadlines etc.
Finances are important, yes- financial and merit aid should be explored. But we did it the other way around. Our first step was to visit an area that had a large public, small elite private, and alternative college. Which happened to be more rural. Then we visited a couple of city schools. That narrowed options because they had reactions to those first visits. We did more visits with size, location, academics and “vibe” each kid wanted, then looked into finances with the relatively small list remaining.
Hanging out in person on the quad, in the dining hall, library, bookstore helped a lot. Those info sessions and tours start blurring. Tours will gain access to spaces not ordinarily accessible though.
Along with the big guides like Fiske or Princeton Review, we used Colleges that Change Lives (website, book, fairs) and a book called “Creative Colleges.” There are so many books available on college choice and admissions.
I think it’s important to keep things relaxed, for mental health reasons and for our continued good relationships with our kids. So we kept schools down: one applied to two, one applied to 4, and one applied to 2 colleges and 4 conservatories.
One humorous note: my son lacked interest in all this, despite his high performance in school. At one point I told him it was fine with me if he didn’t go to college and worked instead. I went out and when I came back he had made a color coded chart for visits! It is tricky balancing helping them and allowing (or asking) them to own it.
There are thousands of schools out there, so figuring out how to hack the possibilities down to a manageable list can be a challenge. The best way to do that is to figure out who your daughter is and what she wants. My oldest had a sport she wanted to play, so we searching along that axis. Her brother wanted to play in a marching band and drink beer, so we went picking through the band schools, lopped off the ones we couldn’t afford or he couldn’t get into and went to work. If there’s a burning passion for a major, or she wants to live ocean-side or in NYC or within 90 minutes of home then you’ve got something to work with.
Things to think about:
Anyway, have her start identifying what she really wants from college. Between her personal preferences, her academic record and your accumulated war chest you should have a good idea how to make this a manageable task.
I agree on first checking out nearby colleges for what type feels right. We looked at big state flagship research U right in our own city. After that we drove to a small liberal arts college and them a medium size private research U. It helped narrow down that D feels most comfortable at a small liberal arts college. After that we targeted schools in that genre. We looked at schools known for merit aid after figuring out we would likely be full pay. We narrowed it further by looking for schools known for strong sciences and with music opportunities. After list was created we did a spreadsheet of deadlines.
For testing-D took SAT in Fall of junior year with the idea that she would still be fresh and rested from summer break. The plan was to retake in August of summer before sr yearif not happy with scores. This ended up being the case and she had the entire summer to prep for second go around. Took August test and was happy with results-so testing done going in to Senior year. She started essays and applications same summer. She is casting a wide net for merit. Applying to 12 schools. Has about 6 applications in and working on the rest. With the main essay on common app done its just finishing up supplemental essays now and is manageable even with a demanding schedule.
Set criteria to narrow search:
Geography
Urban/suburban/rural
Size
Course of study / studies
Greek Life vibe
Athletics
Undergraduate focused vs. large research
etc. ( you can drill way down - my son wanted a school where kids tend to stay on campus)
Of course cost.
Go to a few that challenge the criteria (he wanted suburban. We went to one prestigious urban school and he wanted no part of it- good to test the criteria). Then, and here’s the really important part…let them decide. It will drive you crazy because they’ll like thing you don’t and vice versa, but it’s their college, not yours. He decided not to apply to certain schools that I thought were great fits. In the end, he was right as he’s at a great place for him.
Used a spreadsheet to keep him on track with various dates, requirements. It was helpful seeing a visual on what additional essays needed to be written for merit aid at certain schools.
The deadlines for Financial Aid submissions (CSS, FAFSA, any separate scholarship applications) are not always prominently posted on the Admissions page. Our spreadsheet made note of these deadlines, which was helpful since it can be easy to overlook.
All excellent advice. I want to add: