<p>I just graduated junior year and I've found a lot of tools and websites to help me find colleges but I can't tell which is the best.</p>
<p>The ones I've used so far include Naviance, Cappex, US News, About.com, CollegeConfidential, and the collegeboard's BigFuture.</p>
<p>Which is the most accurate, up-to-date, helpful tool? It doesn't have to be free either.</p>
<p>College data 411 is very good.</p>
<p>personally I liked the College Confidential one. it helps you find some good schools. after that, you just need to do some research to narrow them down</p>
<p>I happen to like Naviance because it gives acceptances for other people in your HS. But no one tool is perfect so it is best to use a group of them together, combined with reading college guide books (ex. Fiske, Princeton) and visits to schools that are of real interest. There is no one easy way.</p>
<p>College Navigator - [College</a> Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/]College”>College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics)
What I like about this one is that you can download search results into a spreadsheet. So it is great for your first pass at a list which you can then whittle down…</p>
<p>Also found Fiske Guide useful.</p>
<p>Collegeboard’s hands down.</p>
<p>I’m particularly fond of Students Review.</p>
<p>But College ******* / ***** / Cappex / CollegeXpress are good too. They also have a lot of scholarships in addition on the website so it’s great.</p>
<p>I actually really like the one here on CC. CampusSearch or SuperMatch or something like that.</p>
<p>I ran it after I’d already done my research, and in a couple of minutes it came up with the same schools I’d set my eyes on after trawling through hundreds of webpages and student testimonials. It’s also really good for weeding out schools that don’t fit a specific requirement you have–major, frats/no frats, religious affiliation, etc.–whose unsuitability you could have missed otherwise.</p>
<p>One word of caution: Some schools I was actually accepted to only appeared in my search results after I inflated my GPA to 4.0. My real GPA was 3.3. I think the engine tends to underestimate your chances at reach and match schools if your academic profile is less than perfect, so if you need help finding more schools like that, you need set your GPA to 3.8 or something–otherwise the engine will not suggest them at all.</p>