College Admission Information on the
Web
The most highly recommended sites below are marked with a
.
Recommendations represent the opinion of the individual parent/librarian who has prepared
this page. They are his judgment of which sites are most useful for the parent or student
beginning the college information search, based on his own search for information to
support his daughter's search for the right college. As you search for information, you
will develop your own preferences, which may differ. Recommendations do not
constitute an endorsement by Colgate University.
-
Statement of
Students' Rights and Responsibilities in the Admissions Process
Statement
of Transfer Students' Rights and Responsibilities in the Admissions Process
- Important reading from the National Association for College Admission
Counseling.
General Advice, Data, and Evaluative Comment
Read all narrative descriptions and evaluations of colleges with a
critical mind. If you look hard enough for opinions of ANY school, you will find some who
hate it and some who love it. The more reading you do about colleges, the more
balanced will be your understanding and the more you will learn to make you own judgments.
Remember that the term, "best college," makes the most sense when defined in
terms on an individual student's talents, goals, and needs.
-
Guide to
College Guides - Student Edition
- Read this first. A concise statement on the kinds of information you
need to find and how to evaluate sources of information. From the
National Association for College Admission Counseling.
Adventures In Education- Advice. Sponsored by the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan
Corporation. Good site for information on such general principles as how to prepare
for college, issues to consider in selecting a college, etc. Data on specific
colleges is limited to those in Texas.
- College Choice Website
- Advice. Prepared by UCLA's Graduate School of Education and
Information Studies. Another good "general principles" site.
- College Prep 101
- Advice. From Oklahoma State University College of Education. An
online textbook of 28 chapters on both college admissions and college life. Lots of
reading, with numerous pitches for OSU, but worth the effort. You might want to
start with the Table of
Contents.
-
U.S. News and
World Report College Site
- Advice, data, and comment. Includes the U.S. News rankings. Caveat:
Before drawing any conclusions from any rankings list, read College and University Rankings
and Rankings Caution
and Controversy from the Education and Social Science Library at the
University of Illinois.
- Parent &
Student Info
- Advice. From the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
- Peterson's
Colleges and Universities
- Advice, data, and comment. From the publishers of
Peterson's Annual Guides to Undergraduate Study.
- Princeton Review
- Advice, data, and comment.
- The
College Board
- Advice and data. The College Board, producers of the Scholastic
Aptitude Test and and is the publisher of the
College
Handbook, an excellent guide that emphasizes statistical fact over
evaluative comment. Emphasis of the Web site is on general principles, numbers and facts, with no evaluative
comment about specific colleges. Reliable.
- Preparing Your Child For College
- Advice. From the U.S. Dept. of Education. More than the title
implies, this is a good resource for parents interested in understanding the
college experience, the college applications process, and how parent planning
can make the process work better for their children..
Who does what and when? The following sources attempt to describe
the roles of the applicant and the college in the admission process. Remember that the
admission process differs from institution to institution. The best source of information
on how admission works at a specific college is its own admission staff.
- Applying to Colleges
- From UCLA's College Choice Website.
-
Articles & Resources
- From Princeton Review. Includes Army ROTC:
Graduate College with More Than a Degree;How Colleges Evaluate Your
Application; When Looking at a College, Start by Looking at Yourself; The
Hidden Messages You Send With Your Application; Talented Students Winning at
the College Admissions Game; Early Decision; Transferring: Making the Big
Switch; Parents: Help or Hindrance; Two Students, One Campus, Tons of
Opinions; Been There, Done That Advice
-
Creating
a powerful application
- From the College Board. Excellent resource for
understanding the admissions process. Includes information about such
things as applying online, DOs and DON'Ts, how to choose people to write
letters of recommendation, surving senioritis, and a handy college application
checklist.
Admission Decisions: How Do Colleges Choose
Students?
The best source of information on how admission decisions are made
at a specific college is its own admission staff.
-
How Colleges Evaluate Your
Applications
- From Peterson's CollegeQuest.
- How Do Colleges Make
Admissions Decisions?
- From UCLA's College Choice Website.
-
Planning
for College
- From the College Board.
-
The
Prep for College Calendar
- From the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
- Preparing for College
- From College Choice Website.
- What can my child do to prepare
academically for college?
- From the U.S. Dept. of Education.
- Ten Steps to Prepare Your
Child for College
- Intended for parents. From College is Possible, a joint project of educational organizations
and participating
colleges.
College Search Engines
The following sites will help you build a list of colleges that
match criteria you supply, such as range of SAT scores in the entering class, size of
student body, location, etc. All include data about individual colleges and most
include evaluative comments. You can use the lists as a beginning or to add to colleges
you already have in mind. Seek additional suggestions from guidance counselors, parents,
and others whose opinions you trust.
- CollegeView
College Search
- Form the Web site of a leading vendor of CD-ROM's to high schools.
-
Peterson's
CollegeQuest
- From Peterson's. Includes a "personal organizer" that lets
you build a list of colleges and keep track of key dates.
-
College
Search
- From the College Board. As expected, lots of reliable, up-to-date
statistics and facts about each school.
- The
Princeton Review
- Basic information available to all. More detailed
information requires free
registration.
Lots of descriptive and evaluative narrative with the numbers.
This is a complex topic that is not adequately addressed in
the short space allotted to it by any of the following four sites. Try one of the
books in "In Print: Further Reading,"
below. Advice to students: Learn all you can, think hard about what you want
from a college, listen carefully to advice from those you trust, and work with your
parents to make a decision that's right for your needs.
- Choosing a College
- From College Prep 101.
-
Specifics
to Consider When Choosing a College
- From Princeton Review.
- Selecting a School
- From UCLA's College Choice Website.
-
CollegeSource Online
- Complete catalogs of virtually every institution of higher education
in the U.S. A fee-based service, but offers a free trial registration.
Catalogs are often a year or two out of date.
- U.S. college web sites
- Web sites of individual colleges often have online catalogs..
None of the services is comprehensive in its lists of colleges
accepting applications through it. Check the lists of cooperating colleges in each
of the following Web sites and with the admission staff at the colleges of interest to you
before deciding to use a particular online application service.
-
Apply!
- From the Princeton Review. This was the first CD-ROM
application system, and it remains popular in both its Web and CD-ROM formats.
- CollegeNet ApplyWeb!
- About 200 US colleges and 75 international (mostly Canadian)
colleges.
- Common Application
- The Common Application is the recommended form of 209 selective, independent colleges
and universities. Download the Common Application for Macintosh or Windows, or
complete it on-line and submit electronically to selected colleges.
-
Next Stop
College
- This service is provided by the College Board and is linked to the College
Board's SAT score reporting service
SAT, PSAT & ACT
- American
College Testing Program
- Publishers of the ACT college admission test. This test is required by many
colleges, particularly in the Midwest.
- SAT
Study Guides
- From Barnes & Noble, a listing of books, most with reviews. Listed in
descending order of number of copies sold.
-
Taking the Tests.
- From the College Board. Best site for registration and score
report information, test dates, etc. Includes PSAT,
SAT I: Reasoning,
SAT II:
Subject Tests,
Advanced
Placement and
CLEP.
- Test
Prep Central @ Amazon.com
- Lists about 75 SAT I and SAT II test prep books of varying quality.
Some title listings include brief reviews submitted by readers. Guidance counselors
can often recommend good books and software.
-
Creating
a Powerful Application
- From the College Board, these pages have information on types of sample
questions, and essay-writing tips.
College Visits and Interviews
-
Creating
a Powerful Application
- From the College Board, these pages have information on types of
interviews, practice interviews, interview do's and don't's, and an
interview checklist.
-
Be Prepared for the Interview and
The College Visit
- From Princeton Review.
-
College
Scholarship Service (CSS) PROFILE
- The scholarship application form used by many (usually private)
colleges (including Colgate and virtually all the highly selective colleges). Request a
paper form or file online.
-
Fastweb
- Service allows you to search for scholarships and to set up a
personal profile. Notices of new awards that match your profile will be sent to you
by e-mail.
- FinAid
-
How
much does a college education cost?
- From the U.S. Dept. of Education.
-
Free
Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)
- The form used by most public universities and colleges. Includes a search page for
school codes, printable FAFSA forms,
and software you can use to file your FAFSA application electronically..
- Mach25
Scholarship Search
- From CollegeNet.
- Paying for College
- From College Is Possible.
-
The Student Guide
- A guide to aid, including loans, available from the U.S. Dept. of
education
- College and University Rankings
- Links to College and University
Rankings
- Prepared by the University of Illinois Education and Social Science
Library.Library. Includes a lists of rankings and a healthy cautionary note on interpreting
rankings.
- Things to Consider When
Evaluating Colleges
- From UCLA's College Choice Website
For most, college is not so much preparation for a career as it
is preparation for living. The majority of successful adults are in careers
unrelated to their college major, and today's college students are expected to change
careers up to seven times in their working life. By all means, think about careers
that might interest you, but don't stress.
- Associations
on the Net (AON)
- From the Internet Public Library. Professional associations are often
a good source of information about careers. For example, the American Philosophical
Association site has such pages as APA Statements on the Profession
and Data on the Profession.
Many other associations have similar pages.
- Careers
in Dentistry
- From the University of North Carolina School of Dentistry.
- CAREERS IN MEDICINE:
- From the Association of American Medical Colleges.
- The Legal Career Guide: From Law
Student to Lawyer
- Lists a number of publications that be purchased on various kinds of legal careers.
-
Occupational Outlook Handbook
- From the U.S. Department of Labor. Includes an alphabetical index of
occupations. For each occupation, describes nature of the work, working conditions,
employment, job outlook, earnings, related occupations, and sources of additional
information.
-
O*Net
Online
- A cooperative database venture of the U.S. Department of Labor and the
National O*NET Consortium. Surveys of workers in hundreds of fields
yield profiles in 6 categories: Worker Characteristics, Worker
Requirements, Experience Requirements, Occupation Requirements, Occupational
Characteristics, and Occupation-Specific Information.
Collections of Links
-
CU Libraries
"Schools and Colleges" Page
-
-
Guidance
Resources Homepage
- A multi-page site, prepared by guidance counselor Martha Wiseman, with
large, annotated lists of links. Because of its relative
comprehensiveness, this may not be a good place to start, but it misses very
little of importance. Uses the following subheadings:
-
- Yahoo!
Colleges and Universities
- Lists of college & university Web sites by country, including the
US
and Canada
-
Yahoo! College
and University Entrance
- BLACK EXCEL: The College Help Network
- "A resource for all, especially African-American families and
first-generation college students."
- Disability-Friendly
Colleges
- From New Mobility's Internet Cafe. Note: Read
all evaluative statements and interpret all rankings critically.
- Home-schooled
Students & College Admission
- From the College Board.
- Yahoo! List of
Honors Programs
In Print: Further Reading
For advice on choosing and evaluating college guide publications, see
Guide to
College Guides - Student Edition,
from the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
FG
08/17/06
©2001 Colgate University Libraries
