College Search Tools

 

Search engines, databases, or other tools specific to the college search process

 

In addition to the sites designed to help you find schools by major, there are many many other sites which aim to provide helpful information to students and families (some with greater success than others).  See the list below, and scroll way down for info on specialty +/or online schools, overseas and grad school searches:

 

Campus Compare

http://www.campuscompare.com/

"CampusCompare is a free college search engine that leverages social media to help users find their best-fit college by what matters to them. Each college’s profile page presents a multi-media view of life at that school, including video, image, RSS, student reviews and the real-time Twitter conversation. Our three web apps help students and parents plan for college: the Financial Aid Calculator, What Are My Chances?, and Compare Schools. Finally, the site has a searchable online library of over 500 articles related to college search."

 

Campus Explorer

http://www.campusexplorer.com/

"Guidance Counselors: Your students are all very different. You want the best for all of them. At the same time, there are only so many minutes in a school-day. You need one-stop shopping when it comes to college research. We'll help you search through vast quantities of information across thousands of schools. You'll be able to home in quickly on an array of options for a diverse student body and help each student complete his or her plan for the future."

 

Cappex

http://www.cappex.com

"Create a Cappex profile to find your college admissions match. Get messages about unique college opportunities. Instantly learn your chances of admission to almost any college in the country. Apply for any of our scholarships with one click. And it's all free."

 

Center for Student Opportunity

http://www.csocollegecenter.org

"An online clearinghouse of college programs and information for first-generation college, low-income, and minority students. A free and publicly accessible site, we encourage you and your students to utilize CSO College Center to research colleges and register a ConnectNow profile to send academic and extracurricular information to colleges of interest."

 

The College Board's "College Matchmaker"

http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/adv_typeofschool.jsp

 

College InSight (from the Institute for College Access and Success)

http://college-insight.org/

 

College Match (from College Data) (review by Michelle Kretzchmar of DIY Rankings is here.)

http://www.collegedata.com/cs/search/college/college_search_tmpl.jhtml

Includes both search tips and some predictive "what are my chances" information

 

College Portraits (from the Voluntary System of Accountability designed by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU))

http://www.collegeportraits.org/

 

College Results

http://collegeresults.org/default.htm

"College Results allows you to

• Examine overall graduation rates and see how those rates have changed over time
• Learn about universities' records graduating diverse groups of students
• Compare the graduation rates of similar institutions - colleges and universities that share many characteristics and serve similar student populations" 

 

CollegeStudentAthlete's searchable database of colleges/universities offering specific sports at the Division 3 (non-scholarship) level:

http://www.collegestudentathletes.com/index.cfm 

 

"CollegeView" Advanced Search (via Hobson's; basic search is also embeddable as a widget, which would be more exciting if the search itself were better)

http://www.collegeview.com/collegesearch/advSearch.jsp

 

Colleges in the USA - with dual college/ career search functionality

http://www.schoolsintheusa.com/

 

Colleges That Change Lives

http://www.ctcl.com/

 

ConnectEdu's "Connect!" (registration required)

http://www.connectedu.net/ 

 

Colleges of Distinction

http://www.collegesofdistinction.com/

 

College Toolkit's Scholarship and College Searches

"This comprehensive site allows students to find and apply for scholarships, search through a database of more than 4,000 colleges, and explore 900 careers all in one location. It is one of the most comprehensive sites for life after high school... and everything on the site is free for students to use!"

http://www.collegetoolkit.com/

 

Cool Schools (via the Sierra Club)

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200909/coolschools/allrankings.aspx

 

DegreeCast

http://www.degreecast.com/

Major-specific searchable database

 

EduPursuit

Basic search best suited to helping plan a road trip; will display results on a map.

http://www.edupursuit.com/index.php

 

Edvisors Online Education Directory

http://www.Edvisors.com - Online Education Program

 

Egiate (GoogleEarth-based search engine)

http://www.egiate.com

 

FindurU (Google-based search that crawls through college webpages to find the term(s) you've specified

http://www1.finduru.com/finduru/

 

Forbes' "roll your own" search (somewhat clunky, and with a limited list of schools, but still...):

http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/05/best-colleges-ranking-screener-opinions-colleges-09-tool.html

 

HotCoursesUSA

http://www.hotcoursesusa.com/

Giant database of courses and programs available, includes student reviews as well

 

How To Get In - College Admission and Search

http://www.HowToGetIn.com

 

Mother Jones' mini college guide:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/09/mojo-mini-college-guide

 

My College Options

http://mycollegeoptions.org/

"My College Options is a FREE interactive college admissions planning program created by the National Research Center for College and University Admissions™ (NRCCUA ®) to fully engage students, parents, high school educators and guidance counselors and over 5,000 college admissions departments in the college planning and recruiting process."

 

My Plan

http://www.myplan.com

100% independent, it gives colleges, careers and majors facts. Research and data is comprehensive, with dozens of easy-to-use tools to make getting information convenient, and simple. 150,000 pages of content, including articles, statistics, images, and videos. Developed around an online community infrastructure for user sharing about any college, career or major it has 3,000+ forums making it the Web's largest educational and/or career planning discussion board.

 

MyUSearch

http://www.myusearch.com/Public/Home/index.cfm

 

Noodle College Search

http://www.noodle.com/colleges

A free tool created by the Founders of the Princeton Review to help make college search smarter. We're unique because our search does the following:

• Lets you find out your odds of being admitted through our easy search & save feature for users
• Aggregates information from multiple sources - Princeton Review, US News, College Prowler, etc. - to deliver the most accurate and comprehensive info about a school
• Offers tuition & financial aid stats that include sticker price vs. real price 

 

Peterson's "College Search"

http://petersons.com/ugchannel/code/searches/srchCrit1.asp

 

Princeton Review's "Counselor-o-Matic"

http://princetonreview.com/college/research/advsearch/match.asp

 

SparkNotes' College Search

http://college.sparknotes.com/search/

 

StateUniversity.com - "Comprehensive profiles for every state university. Also receive information about obtaining an online university degree so you can study from home."

http://www.stateuniversity.com/

 

StuVu - Student Views of College Life

http://stuvu.com/

 

SuperMatch

http://www.collegeconfidential.com/college_search/

 

TopQuest

http://www.topquest.net/Default.aspx

"TOPQUEST is the ONLY one-stop college resource for detailed information about all 6,000+ accredited colleges, thousands of records of scholarships and funding, including college-specific scholarships, and the unique CZ Auto-fill Tool™ which lets you apply to multiple colleges with the click of a few buttons, saving you hours! TOPQUEST (TQ) streamlines the college prep/application process, allowing you to search, match and apply to colleges and for funding. Detailed results are based on your academic profile (SAT, ACT, GPA) and personal criteria. We are the ONLY college prep service with an extensive list of college-specific scholarships; an auto-fill tool that completes 80% of all online applications; MindSight™ academic transition tool; and the Guidance Counselor Utility and online counseling support."

 

What Will They Learn?

http://www.whatwilltheylearn.com/

That is the question the American Council of Trustees and Alumni asks on this website. They do so by exploring the state of general education, those courses designed to give college students a firm grounding in the areas of knowledge they will use for a lifetime. Specifically, they evaluate whether major colleges and universities require seven key subjects: English composition, literature, foreign language, U.S. government or history, economics, mathematics, and science.

 

Wintergreen Orchard House's "Careers and Colleges" (registration required)

http://www.careersandcolleges.com

 

U-CAN (University and College Accountability Network, developed by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, or NAICU)

http://www.ucan-network.org

 

Unigo - Find, Explore, and Review America's Colleges

http://www.unigo.com

 

USA University Guide

http://usauniversityguide.org/contents/UniversitySearch.aspx

 

USA Today's Best Value colleges:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/best-value-colleges.htm

 

USNews & World Report

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college

Lists of schools according to USNews' rankings or other pre-defined criteria

 

Washington Monthly's rankings:

Liberal Arts Colleges: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings/liberal_arts_rank.php

National Universities: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings/national_university_rank.php

 

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Specialty +/or Online School Searches

 

AACSB-accredited Business Schools:

http://bestbizschools.com/

 

ABET-accredited Engineering Schools
http://main.abet.org/aps/Accreditedprogramsearch.aspx 

 

Accredited Online Colleges:

http://www.accreditedonlinecolleges.org/

 

Online Colleges

http://OnlineColleges.net

(Recommendations for including this site came via somewhat "sketchy" robo-emails, so some caution might be warranted.)

 

Online Colleges:

http://www.affordablecollegesonline.org/

 

Art and design programs:

http://nasad.arts-accredit.org/index.jsp?page=Member+Lists

(colleges of art, colleges & universities accredited by the National Assoc of Schools of Art & Design)

TO USE - hit submit at bottom of page to get full listing, or narrow by city and state

http://www.aicad.org (colleges of art accredited by the National Assoc of Schools of Art & Design)

 

Division III Athletics:

http://www.collegestudentathletes.com/index.cfm

 

LGBT-Friendly Campus Climate Index

http://www.campusclimateindex.org/

 

Free-to-view clearinghouse of higher ed entrepreneurship programs

http://entrepreneuredu.org/

 

Guide to Online Schools

http://www.guidetoonlineschools.com/

Student-generated reviews of online educational opportunities

 

Honors Colleges:

http://www.nchchonors.org/memberinstitution.shtml

 

Sports Management Degrees:

http://sportsmanagementdegrees.net/

 

Colleges that are the best "neighbors" in their communities:

http://www.wsc.ma.edu/Announcements/Top_25_Saviors.html

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Overseas Options

 

The International Association of Universities website has a listing of many of the recognized schools in each country: http://www.unesco.org/iau/onlinedatabases/list.html

 

Eurydice is the information network on European education: http://www.eurydice.org/portal/page/portal/Eurydice/Overview/OverviewByCountry

 

NAFSA: Association of International Educators lists a variety of (paid and free) resources on a country-by-country basis:

http://www.nafsa.org/knowledge_community_network.sec/recruitment_admissions/admissions_and_credential/document_library_14/credential_evaluation/researching_internationalization

 

Braintrack, while a good starting place, may list schools that are not accredited in their home countries.   http://www.braintrack.com/

 

Association of Colleges and Universities of Canada

http://www.aucc.ca/

 

Maclean's Annual Searchable Database of Canadian Institutions

http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/rankings/

 

Guide to Post-Secondary Options in Ontario, Canada

http://www.electronicinfo.ca/en/index.php?j=1

 

Directory of International Colleges and Universities:

http://directory.edvisors.com/International/index.html

 

 

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Graduate Schools

 

Graduate Center School Search

http://www.graduatecenter.com/schools/

 

http://gradschools.com

 

http://www.howtogetin.com/college-search/

 

http://idhunter.com/search-programs/

"Explore over 65 online graduate certificate programs in instructional design, online teaching, e-learning, and related fields in an extensive FREE sortable table."

 

http://www.MatchCollege.com

 

http://www.petersons.com

 

http://www.princetonreview.com/grad/research/advsearch/match.asp