SendMeToCollege.com

In keeping with today’s theme of college application deadlines, Suburban Journals (A St. Louis Metro area online paper) has an article about starting the college planning process early.

Here at SMTC I’ve posted numerous articles about starting everything early (especially the saving part), so it should be no surprise that I’d advocate starting the examination and application process early as well.

For members of the class of 2010 deadlines for getting into college are coming around. The Charlotte Observer(.com) has an article that follows the efforts of a couple of this year’s seniors as they prepare and apply for college.

Topics Covered Include:

• Limit your applications
• Visualize life there
• Frustration was normal
• Most love their choice
• Make the decision

The main point is really summed up in that last bullet. Make your decision and then GET OFF YOUR BUTT AND APPLY.

As always, the full article can be found here.

Toodling around the Internet today I found the Newsday.com college prep center which has several short articles about choosing, getting into, and paying for college.

1. College Admissions Process – All the Tips & Tools for Success
2. How to Test Drive a College – Guidelines for your Visits
3. Effective Essay Writing
4. Make The Most Of A College Fair
5. Working With Your Guidance Counselor – A Partner on the Journey
6. Choosing a College – It’s About the Right Fit

The Sooo…Tell Me About Yourself Blog has a post today with real live interview questions taken by would-be Princeton students.

I won’t ruin any of the article by posting any of the questions directly, but it’s interesting. At the very least it may take some of the fear out of those too cool to go here questions you hear about. You know that crapola like “How would you bury a mountain with a thimble?” or some other such nonsense.

It sounds like the Admissions Officers at Princeton are..gasp..actually trying to get some insight into the students.

So fooling around on the web today I found a search engine for Colleges and Universities called Campus Explorer.

This tools seems like a pretty decent first order filter for getting in the ballpark for schools.

This search engine lets you search for schools by type of school (2 year, 4 year, public, private, vocational), location, by major. And once you pull up a list you can filter by whatever criteria you wish. You can also create a profile if you want to save your preferences and your search results.

I liked the “calculate your chance of admission” widget as well.

Once you’ve selected a particular school this site provides a lot of general specific information about the school. Tuition, admission information, geographic area, a few pictures. Like I said, a good first order filter for getting an idea of which schools one might like to look at. And of course each entry has a direct link to the school’s website.

A link to Campus Explorer can be found here.

This YouTube video features Dr. Katherine Cohen discussing (common?) college application mistakes.

Apparently, college fairs really can be quite useful.

The Sacramento Bee published an article suggesting that high school juniors and seniors should come (prepared) and take advantage of the information offered at college fairs.

Among their other suggestions: FTA:

• Be prepared
• Ask questions
• Know who you’re talking to

The full article can be found here.