Up to no good surfing the web???!!! Here’s a good way to prove to the adults in your life that you are doing more than playing SuperMario, MySpacing, Halo and texting with the technology at your fingertips…Check out these websites and talk to them about what you found out.
Go ahead and open a user account on collegeboard.com – I dare you!!!!
College Search Websites and Worksheet
Not nearly complete list of career and college research websites brought to you by The Springfield Renaissance School’s College Planning Team.
Personal Inventory
The first step in thinking about college is a self-evaluation. What motivates you? What kinds of things do you like? In what kind of environment do you learn best?
Use the O*Net Profiler in MassCIS (MA Career Information System) This is a free website for MA students to help them conduct personal inventories, research careers and occupations and learn about colleges. This is heavily used in the high school EL 101.
This is the website for PICS – a personal inventory of college styles. It analyzes a student’s personal style based on eight different dimensions and gives the student insight on the types of colleges that may be a good match. Do not pay for the matching process, we recommend that students take the survey, get their results, and print them out with out going further. The printout will give them further information when trying to choose among schools.
College Entrance Testing
Sign up for the SAT and Subject tests. Take practice test and get your results analyzed. Within this site are various sections dealing with college choice, financial aid, testing, and much more. A great resource for more information!
Sign up for the ACT. Find colleges and information about colleges.
Next test date – September 12, 2009 Deadline August 7, 2009 Late Deadline August 8 – 21, 2009
Looking at Schools
The Springfield Renaissance School College Planning Team is encouraging students to have 5-8 schools on your list. The next step is to evaluate the schools by comparing the information from one to another. If you feel that you need more schools on your list, or that the ones listed don’t meet enough of your criteria, try looking at the overlaps listed in Fiske and Princeton Review for other possibilities. Remember, no one school may be perfect- you are just trying to narrow down options and decide what you like at this point.
Remember to add any information you think is important to your worksheets from the College Process Team. Things like size, location, faculty/student ratio may be important to you. Make sure the most important attributes for you are listed on your worksheet. Include information about the schools admission standards. That information will help you decide if the school is considered a reach, safety or target.
Go to the section for Counselor-O-Matic and complete the questionnaire. Have Counselor-O-Matic generate a list of schools for you. Use this list to begin filling in a comparison worksheet of college options. Pay attention to the attributes of each school that are relevant criteria for you.
To get an idea of what the school looks like try this one. This site will link you to virtual tours of campuses and other information to aid you in narrowing down your list. While nothing can take the place of actually visiting the school, sometimes having an internet tour can help you identify questions you may have when you make your college visits.
College Visits
Hopefully, once you have visited some schools, you will be able to identify attributes about each school that you like or dislike. This will aid you in narrowing down the list of schools to which you will apply. If visiting the schools on your list is not possible, then try to visit school nearby that are similar in size and environment. That may help you as you try to choose.
This is the Steps to College part of the NACAC website. Under previous articles, scroll down to the one on college visits. Here you will find information to help you get the most out of a visit and what parts of campus to see. The other articles here are also helpful, so read any others that may interest you.
Students with Special Needs
For students with special needs such as learning disabilities or ADD, try finding out about resources on campus to help you succeed. The following websites offer guidelines in terms of what to look for and how to prepare for college if this is an issue for you:
www.help4adhd.org/en/education/college/collegeissues
This is specifically for students with AD/HD and offer good questions to ask while on campus or when searching for information.
www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/postsecondary/
The planning and selection part of this site offer additional help for students with learning disabilities.
Financial Aid
FAFSA4caster will help you get an early start on the financial aid process by providing you with an early estimate of your eligibility for federal student aid.
Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Federal Student Aid, an office of the U.S. Department of Education, ensures that all eligible individuals can benefit from federally funded or federally guaranteed financial assistance for education beyond high school.
College matching service. leading scholarship search provider for every student, whether you’re in high school or a mother of two returning to school. One in eight high school seniors use FastWeb, and the site comes recommended by over 16,000 high schools and 3,600 colleges.
General College Information Websites
Great general information about college for students middle school aged though senior year.
This site is built by the U.S. Department of Education in collaboration with students. This site is intended to be the go-to source for information and resources about planning, preparing and paying for postsecondary education (such as 2- or 4-year colleges and universities, as well as vocational or career schools).
Website geared towards first generation college students and their families. Lots of helpful handouts and media.
