Comparison of Top 11 College Search Engines

Three directional arrows on a pole, labeled "Good" in green pointing left, "Better" in red pointing right, and "Best" in blue pointing upward—perfect for comparing college search websites.

Good Better Best Steet SignsSometime ago I did a series of posts comparing college search websites. I tried to complete a search for colleges with specific characteristics and evaluated how easy it was to do in eight different websites. I think it’s time to once again compare college search websites but use a different approach. This time I’m going to organize the posts by search feature rather than website

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Free College Admissions Resources You Should Know About: Guides for Athletes and Students with Disabilities

Neon sign spelling freeIt’s easy to spend a lot of money on books and services to help with the college admissions process. The problem is that families often don’t know enough to know which questions to ask to find the best resources for them. Fortunately, there are a variety of free college guides available that can serve as a place to begin the search.

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Best Colleges for Pre-Med

Med school books(The following is a guest post by? John Rood of Next Step Test Preparation)

After astronaut, princess, and pro football player, doctor is one of the professions that people know they want to enter when they are young. Of course, doctor is the one that students generally stay with. For students who plan on going into medicine, choosing a college with a great pre-med program is a critical step.

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50-50 Highlights: College Acceptance Rates

Velvet ropeThere’s a widely held belief that the harder it is to get into a college, the better the college must be. After all Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and Yale all have acceptance rates of less than ten percent and look how good they are. Or are they good because they have acceptance rates of less than ten percent?

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50-50 Highlights: List of Lists of 50-50 Colleges

man with listSince last April I’ve been creating lists of 50-50 schools by various topics. There have been 31 topics generating 58 tables. The idea behind the lists is provide people with different ways of learning about schools they may have never heard of before with a minimum set of standards.

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5 Steps to a Successful Junior Year

Success in stepsThe following is a guest post on junior year college planning by Jessica Socheski, a higher education writer.

Your junior year of high school is one of the most exciting seasons because this is when college preparation really kicks into high gear. Eleventh grade is the perfect time to explore career paths, visit colleges and complete your standardized tests (i.e. SAT and/or ACT). There are many opportunities and a lot of information that will be thrown at you in this year. But with a clear guide of what to do and what not to worry about, you’ll be able to successfully navigate your junior year.

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College Athletic Recruiting: Some Reading Suggestions

dog reading a bookThere’s a lot of information out there and not enough time to figure out what to read, much less actually read it. So I thought I would suggest a few articles that are worth reading. Some are more “big picture” or “policy” type articles that hopefully you won’t run into playing college sports, but you never know. Others are more along the lines of practical advice recruits and their families need to know.

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