Thursday, September 20, 2001
tech.life@school | Joyce Kasman Valenza
Choosing a college with online help
Interactive search tools are a good place to start. Applications and financial aid forms are available.
Choosing a college is a big research project, the first one that really counts. It's a process requiring students to locate and compare information, manage time, and organize resources, with the ultimate goals of preparing a polished product and making an informed choice.
If you already have some colleges in mind, a few gateway sites provide easy access to universities' home pages, where you can get background information, download applications, even apply online.
These gateways include University Links at www.ULinks.com/, the Center for All Collegiate Information at www.collegiate.net/text.html, the University of Texas at Austin at www.utexas.edu/world/univ/, and the Ecola Newsstand College Locator at www.ecola.com/college/. Yahoo offers links by state at http://dir.yahoo.com/Education/Higher_Education/Colleges_and_Universities/By_Region/U_S__States/, and Braintrack University Index offers a database with an international flavor at www.braintrack.com/
If you are looking for a rich multimedia experience, the next best thing to visiting is a virtual campus tour, available at either Campus Tours.com (www.CampusTours.com/) or College View Virtual Tours (www.collegeview.com/vtours/).
If you have no list of possible schools, the best place to start may be an interactive search tool. U.S. News.com's Profiler at www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/cosearch.htm, one of my favorites, allows students to search by school size, location, cost, major, setting, academics, religious affiliation and other criteria.Other search tools include: Embark's excellent Undergraduate Matchmaker, at www.embark.com/; the College Board at http://www2.collegeboard.com/search/advhome.jsp; CollegeNet at http:// cnsearch.collegenet.com/cgi-bin/CN/index; College View at www.collegeview.com/collegesearch/index.epl; and Peterson's detailed college search at www.petersons.com/.
You've created a list using the search tools. Now compare your picks. The U.S. News College Comparison at www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/coworks.htm allows students to group up to four schools side by side and compare them by a full page of criteria, including distance from your home zip code. The Collegeboard.com Side by Side Comparison at http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/sidebyside.jsp will generate a similar worksheet for up to three schools at a time. If you value the rankings of experts, visit College and University Rankings at www.library.uiuc.edu/edx/rankings.htm, an annotated guide to online college ranking services, maintained by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The site links to such rating services as Kiplinger's 100 Best Values in Public Education, Black Enterprise's Top Fifty Colleges for African Americans, and New Mobility's Disability-Friendly Schools. U.S. News.com posts its own comprehensive 2001 rankings lists at www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/corank.htm.
Some rankings - for security, for instance - may be valued more by parents than students. CampusSafety.org at www.campussafety.org/ and the Department of Education's OPE Campus Security Statistics Web site at www.ope.ed.gov/security/ offer campus crime statistics.
Go beyond the public-relations face that a college presents on its official page by reading the school's newspaper, where you'll get a feel for the raw, student-reported culture and climate on campus. College News Online at www.collegenews.com links to 400 student-run and campus newspapers.
For many students, selecting a school may go hand in hand with the first consideration of a career path. What Can I Do With This Major? at http://www1.wsc.ma.edu/careerservices/majors/default.html allows students to connect potential majors with careers. For each major, the site provides a downloadable document describing career options, typical employers, and strategies to maximize career opportunities - which courses, internships, minors, extracurricular, or graduate experiences to choose.
Got a list of schools? Time to move on to the app! The Common Application at www.commonapp.org/ has been around for more than 25 years. It is now downloadable and accepted by 227 colleges and universities, many of which use the form exclusively. Students complete one form, photocopy it, and send the form to any of the participating colleges. If the schools you are interested in participate, the Common Application can eliminate duplication of effort and simplify the process considerably. You also might care to download the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form required for most college aid applications at www.fafsa.ed.gov. College Board's Profile OnLine at http://profileonline.cbreston.org is an online financial aid form, used in addition to the FAFSA, by scholarship services and a number of private schools.
It's challenging to deal with this process as a parent. Designed for parents, Send Your Child to College at www.guideforparents.com/ is a comprehensive gateway to help you guide your student through the process.
For a more complete, clickable list of Web resources for college-bound students, visit http://mciu.org/~spjvweb/colsearch.html.
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Joyce Kasman Valenza is the librarian at Springfield High School in Erdenheim, Pa. Her column appears each week in tech.life.
Her e-mail address is joyce.valenza@phillynews.com
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