Ready, Set, Search!

www.collegelab.orgYou've got to start somewhere.

In the college admissions journey, the first and most important stop is self-assessment.  That's right.  Look inside before you look outside.  Get to know yourself.  It's hard (read: impossible) to find a college that fits your needs and wants if you haven't thought about what you need, or what you want.  

College Match, by Stephen Antonoff, is a concise workbook with valuable insights that we use regularly with students to better understand their wants and needs.  If you're tired of working on paper, you can go online to BigFuture's Step-by-Step guide.  You'll find a list of questions with interactive features. By the final screen, you'll have a list of criteria that will help you in the search for the colleges that "fit" your learning style and your academic interests, as well desired location, size, campus setting, and social alternatives.  Now you're ready to begin. 

News flash:  you don't have to sift through reams of description and statistics, or mile-high piles of college brochures to find the right fit colleges.  Phew!  There are some really useful books that can help you find colleges that meet your criteria.  Case in point:  The Fiske Guide to Colleges.  We love it.  

Prefer something less like a phone book?  CollegeLab is one of several online tools which can personalize the college search process.  It's our favorite, but we're biased (Alicia is the CEO)! Search for "college search" and you'll get almost three billion hits.  That's a lot, so we've narrowed it down for you.   Simply visit any one of our favorite sites, enter the criteria from your self-assessment process (the most important step - did we say that already?), and voila, your college list starts to take shape.

One more thing.  Start big.  Think about a funnel, broad at the top and then gently narrowing, so that the fit is just right at the bottom.  Your college search process should be the same.  In order to come up with the best fit at the end, you need to start with a broad list.  Keep an open mind.  

What are our favorite sites for college search, you ask?

• CollegeLab - a fee-based subscription service, included free of charge for all College Counseling Partners International clients - provides a prediction of your college chances at hundreds of colleges in the U.S. These predictions are the results of a sophisticated algorithm that uses machine learning to compare your application data to over 4 million other student application profiles, and uses twelve key data points.  Search for colleges based on many filters, sort your list by Reach, Target and Likely predictions, and learn how changes to the twelve key data points affect your predictions.
• The college search tool at BigFuture (brought to you by the College Board) is an excellent place to start.  Identify your criteria - do you want a school with a marching band, a major in oceanography, and housing for international students? - and voila, a comprehensive list from a database of almost 4,000 colleges is ready for your review.
• The Peterson's website provides search tools for both colleges and scholarships, by the authors of the well-known guide (Peterson's Four-Year Colleges).
• At CollegeData, try the College Match feature to enter a long list of criteria for the best matches for you.
• MyCollegeOptions.org not only has a large database of colleges, but provides access to over 60,000 scholarship listings.  After you sign up and create a personal profile, the site will search its database for the best matches.
• CollegeNavigator is the U.S. Department of Education's search site.  If you have tired of everything that the other sites have to offer, you will love the ability to dig deep into the statistics on this site.  
• Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS)  is the search and application portal for UK universities. Search for courses, subject, location or an details on a particular university.
• The Complete University Guide can be used together with UCAS when researching UK universities.  It is source of League tables as well as a guide to individual universities. 


This list would not be complete without mentioning Naviance, Unigo and other fee-based, online service offered by some high schools to facilitate collaboration between student, school and parents on all aspects of the college admissions process.  If you are fortunate enough to have access to one of these, use it!  If not, you should be all set with the resources above.  

Happy hunting!