Aside from the sage advice available here, I was wondering what other websites or online tools parents found useful in the college application process. Just today I came across the collegeappwizard site which seems a really cool tracker for applications and financial aid paperwork. It helps the kid track due dates, what exames are required, financial aid applications, etc. Made me wonder - what other cool things might be out there? TIA
I second Collegedata. I also use Niche and Princeton Reviews. Then, just because I’m a little to dang nosy, I follow prospective schools on Facebook and Instagram and watch their videos on You Tube, with much eye rolling from my daughter. Once the actual application process starts, she has a computer program through her school to keep track of everything.
I liked College Navigator for their in depth statistics. Their numbers were quite close to what my daughter received for financial aid. It is a government site. You can also compare colleges. https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/ While the online calculators are very important, all the numbers are on this site, and you can see trends over time.
For those parents of designers/artists out there; my daughter was applying to design schools, so viewing portfolios on YouTube was very helpful.
Addendum (not online, but so important) Make sure to attend the National Portfolio Days near you. My daughter’s art teacher didn’t tell her - I did. You will receive excellent feedback. My daughter’s portfolio was accepted by one school on the spot. (She still needed to apply.) - If you can make more than one, you can see more schools. Bring both parents to hold places in line. Get there two hours early at least. We were 2 hours early, and about the 100th in line. I know that this last one is not about “sites” but it can be “hidden” if your art kid’s teacher doesn’t tell you about it.
If you HS has Naviance we found that to be a helpful tool.
Thanks! No Naviance here because we are an international school with only about 25% of the kids applying to the US and Canada.
The common data sets of each particular college you are thinking of applying to.
Niche and Cappex
For potential merit scholarships, I like to use MeritAid.com; although you will need to go to the actual schools’ websites to update information for accuracy.
I paid for a subscripton to USNWR College Compass-- definite NOT worth it. Princeton Review college info was more useful, and it was free.
The American Association of Engineering Education “ASEE” site includes college profiles showing the SAT and ACT 25th and 75th scores for admitted engineering students. For ACT it shows both composite and math.
Don’t forget the Common Data Set on each college’s website…if you are trying to figure if showing interest is important, it has a whole table of how important they think each factor is.
For those starting out in the process, here’s a good site to quickly obtain high level information: http://collegecost.ed.gov/