It’s that time of year again: spring is here, the school year is wrapping up, and you’re one step closer to your senior year — ahh! As you start to visit colleges and decide what you want to study, it can be super hard to find a school that makes you say, “This is it.” There are so many things to take into account: Do you want to be in the city, in the suburbs, or in the middle of nowhere? Do you want a campus with a big party scene or a more laidback atmosphere? Would you prefer a state school or a private school? Once you narrow down your choices a bit, there are even more questions to ask: Are the dorms luxurious or scary? Is the dining hall food edible? Are there lots of cute boys on campus? All of this may seem overwhelming, but don’t worry—here are some websites to help you find your perfect college match!
If you want opinions about college life from current college students, applicants, and parents, definitely check out College Confidential. This site is home to the world’s largest college forum, where students share their experiences with applying to schools, earning scholarships, and preparing for the SATs and ACTs, among many other things. A huge amount of these forums are made up of questions about specific schools, which can be helpful once you narrow down your choices. Another perk of College Confidential is SuperMatch—a tool for searching colleges based on the criteria that matters most to you, whether it’s tuition, Greek life, or sports. The website also has a section called Ask the Dean, similar to Dear Abby for future college students.
If you’re looking for one-on-one, expert advice on how to choose a college, Unigo is the website for you. One of the biggest perks of Unigo membership is the ability to speak with handpicked counselors via webchat for $99/hour. These counselors are financial aid and admissions experts, and will be able to guide you through the stressful process of picking and applying to colleges. For an additional fee, you can also take Unigo’s online admissions course, Access, which will guide you through the application process. Once you’ve narrowed down your college choices, Unigo allows you to video chat with students at those schools, so you can ask any questions your heart desires—pretty awesome, right? Unigo also offers over 200 video tutorials to help you with the college process, and judges your admission chances based on things like your SAT scores, your ethnicity, and your high school GPA. Unigo’s services may not be free, but they’re fantastic resources if your guidance counselor isn’t meeting your needs.
Noodle is a super-personalized website dedicated to finding your dream college. The site starts by asking you general questions about your test scores, your high school, and your GPA. Then the questions get more personal: What would you most likely do on campus on a Saturday night? What is your ideal workload? Does the weather at your school matter? Do you want to participate in Greek life? Is diversity important to you? After you finish answering, Noodle gives you a huge list of schools in order of their relevance to your interests, so you can compare and contrast certain colleges you may be considering. The site also has search engines to help you find test prep courses and education consultants near you.
You may recognize CollegeBoard as the online home to the SATs and AP tests—gross! However, the site has a section called BigFuture, where you can take a quiz that will match you up with the best colleges for your interests. You can also search for specific majors and read about what they entail, which high school classes will help familiarize yourself with the major and which courses you’ll have to take in college. You can also get tons of tips on writing a killer college essay, acing an interview, and paying for college.
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WiseChoice’s tagline is “Your Personalized Path to College,” and it certainly doesn’t lie: this website helps you figure out the best colleges, careers, and scholarships based on your needs and interests. WiseChoice has you take a five-part personality assessment to find schools that fit you perfectly. The site also has you fill out data sheets with more typical information, like your family’s income and your favorite subject in school, in order to further match you with schools. To help you find scholarships, WiseChoice has a huge survey where you specify anything that makes you stand out in a crowd—whether it’s a club you’re a part of or a medical condition you have — and get matched with corresponding scholarships.
For many of us, affording college can be a struggle. Check out College Scorecard, a website recently launched by the White House to help students find the most affordable colleges for their interests and potential majors. If you search the name of a college, the website will tell you the school’s net cost, how difficult it is for students to pay off loans after attending, the school’s graduation rate, and how much money students typically borrow in federal loans. Like most other sites, College Scorecard also allows you to narrow down school based on things like size, location, and degrees offered.
Her Campus Pre-Collegiette Guide
So you’ve narrowed your decision down to a few colleges, but you just can’t pick which one is right for you. So frustrating, right? That’s where Her Campus’s Pre-Collegiette Guide comes in. This guide features input from current students at 80 schools across the country about topics like academics, housing, and activities on campus. Students also provide their opinions on the best and worst parts of their college or university, so you can compare and contrast the schools you’re considering.