Recommended Websites - Your College-Bound Kid

CollegeVine College Admissions Calculator : This is the best free calculator I know of at estimating your student’s chances of admission at the colleges they are applying to. (Ep. 281)
PAYE Vs. REPAYE: Which Student Loan Payment Plan Is Right For You? : A Forbes article that does a great job at explaining the difference between REPAY (Revised Pay as You Earn) and PAYE (Pay as you Earn) Melissa Ford of the Damsel of Success YouTube channel also has a great video on REPAY that I recommend you check out, but this article has a great explanation of the differences between the two leading Income Driven Repayment Plans. Income Driven repayment plans are usually appropriate for students who have more student loan debt then their salary. Every college counselor needs to be familiar with these differences but every parent should also know their options when it comes to having their student pay student debt. The article is written by Kat Tretina and Mike Cetera of Forbes and it is entitled, PAYE vs REPAYE, which student loan repayment plan is right for you? It is an excellent article we encourage you to read. (Ep. 279)
Pay-As-You-Earn Repayment Plan : The video does an excellent job explaining when it makes sense for a student use the PAYE plan for loan repayment and how it may be able to save you tens of thousands of dollar. (Ep. 277)
Todoist (Ep. 275)
Gatecrashers podcast (Ep. 271)
Race to Nowhere : The documentary looks at the incredible pressure that students as young as elementary students are under to forsake creativity and get caught up in the rat race of excessive homework. The documentary was released in 2010 but it is just as relevant now as it was then. It is available on YouTube and Amazon Prime. (Ep. 269)
Completing the CSS Profile : A great FAQ on the CSS PROFILE with four financial aid officers from selective colleges (Ep. 267)
StudentAid.gov : Federal Student Aid for loan forgiveness (Ep. 267)
Quick Reference Guide to UC Admissions (Ep. 265)
Bethesda Magazine’s annual look at which colleges students from six local high schools applied, were admitted and where they enrolled (Ep. 261)
Wall Street Oasis : The website contains lots of discussions about wall street careers, including which colleges have a good track record of placing kids in which Wall Street jobs. (Ep. 257)
Student Load Planner Blog : This is the work of Tyler Hornsby, who we have interviewed on our podcast. This is the best source Mark knows of to follow the student loan forgiveness and all other student loan options. (Ep. 253)
Common App : Common App’s updated application guide for First-Year students to completing the Common App. (Ep. 245)
A Guide to the Education Section of the Common App : This resource will assuredly help anyone who is completing this section of the Common App that often befuddles students. (Ep. 243)
Higher Ed Data Stories : This sensational resource looks at accurate government data on cutting edge admissions topics and presents the data visually. It is the work of Jon Boeckenstadt, the VP of admissions at Oregon State. (Ep. 241)
Animation Career Review : This is a great source for looking at schools that are great in the arts. (Ep. 239)
College Factual : This website includes voluminous amounts of data on each college and the information is presented in a way that is very visually appealing and user friendly. (Ep. 237)
The UVA Admission Blog : This is the official admissions blog for the University of Virginia. You will find frequent entries for Dean J, (Jeannine Lalonde) but also from students. In the June 13th edition, the blog shares their new college-specific questions for 2022. UVA also has a transfer blog that is worth checking out. (Ep. 235)
schoolhouse : This website provides free high quality SAT prep and math tutoring in groups of three to ten. They continue to add more subjects for there tutoring. (Ep. 233)
UniversityStudy.ca : Explore Canadian universities and programs of study. Recommended first place to start for researching Canadian universities. (Ep. 231)
CTAS Higher Ed Business : The website tracks trends in applications and the cost of college. They have cutting edge data here that is rarely found anywhere else. (Ep. 227)
Hold Me Back podcast : Episodes 16-19 are all interviews with admissions leaders that I thought were excellent. The interviews are with Christof Guttentag of Duke, Rick Clark of Georgia Tech, Johnathan Burdick of Cornell and Heath Einstein of TCU. (Ep. 226)
Freakonomics podcast and the three episodes they did on college admissions related topics. The episodes are 500, 501 and 502. (Ep. 225)
Application to Admission podcast (Ep. 224)
Med School Insiders : They have over 300 videos that answer some of the most frequent questions that a student or parent have about med school. These animated videos are subscribed to by over 1.44 million people. (Ep. 223)
College Transitions/Dataverse Waitlist Statistics (Ep. 219)
Campuspride.org : Campuspride.org assesses whether a college is LGBTQ friendly and supportive. (Ep. 218)
The Twitter feed of the VP of Enrollment at Oregon State: Jon Boeckenstedt (Ep. 217)
"The Slice" by Applerouth : A great college admissions blog but also a place to learn about up and coming college admissions webinars. (Ep. 216)
Future U Podcast : Jeff Selingo and Michael Horn discuss what’s next for higher ed and talk with the newsmakers you want to hear from most. (Ep. 215)
CollegeWeekLive : This is a great website if you want to have a live virtual chat with an admission officer or if you want to watch great on demand webinars by college admission experts. (Ep. 213)
uAspire : uAspire is a non-profit with the singular focus on college affordability and removing financial barriers so that every student has an equitable opportunity to attain a post-secondary degree without burdensome debt. uAspire provides training and resources for students and counselors to help them understand college financial systems and the barriers that keep students from graduating because of money. (Ep. 212)
College Hunch : This website has a wealth of information about the colleges you are visiting and it is very user friendly for accessing by phone. It is great to use in the car when you are visiting colleges. (Ep. 211)
Less High School Stress : A website designed to reduce the unhealthy stress in the college process. (Ep. 208)
Education Rankings - Macleans.ca : A great source for research on Canadian universities and it is Macleans annual college edition. (Ep. 204)
The American Council of Higher Education (ACE) : We particularly want to draw attention to their top stories in Higher Education. This is a great way to stay current on the hot topics in the news beyond the one that Mark and Dave discuss every week on the podcast. (Ep. 199)
RPI’s Center for Career and Professional Development : An example of this treasure trove of a resource that you want to check out for the college’s on your student’s list. (Ep. 198)
Data USA : Friends, please trust me and check out this absolutely unbelievable reservoir of data in every area imaginable. The website uses colorful graphs and charts. Some MIT students developed this and it is my favorite website for college data and it uses IPEDS data. (Ep. 196)
National Alliance on Mental Health/a> : Lisa tells us how to use the helpline to get help for any student in danger of suicide or any other serious mental health problems. (Ep. 195)
Student Loans and Guidance on Ways to Pay for College - MEFA (Ep. 194)
Federal Student Aid : The place to go to get a FSA ID. At least one parent and the student will need to get their own FSA ID to access Federal grants, loans or the Federal Work study program. (Ep. 192)
College Transitions : A great source for curated lists on a number of very relevant topics. (Ep. 191)
Hillels Guide to Jewish Life at Colleges and Universities : A sensational resource for anyone who wants to know which colleges serve Jewish students well. (Ep. 190)
Corsava : A card sort online test that helps identify the qualities in a college each student will thrive at. Mark and Lisa have Corsava subscriptions and we use this test with all of the students that we counsel. Students enjoy this and it takes only about 12 minutes. (Ep. 189)
Niche : Look at the poll results at niche.com to their question, what one word best describes your school. (Ep. 187)
CollegeVine : A tremendous free resource for many things including a college admissions calculator and live streams. (Ep. 186)
The Process : Hear from Eric Furda (former Dean of Admissions at U Penn) in his own words about his SiriusXM’s show, The Process, the monthly program serving students and families with valuable insight into the college search, can be heard on SiriusXM Stars (Ch. 109) on Saturdays and Sundays, as well as On Demand. (Ep. 185)
Poets & Quants : This website is an excellent source of information for anything related to the best business schools in the US and abroad. It covers undergrad business programs and MBA programs. (Ep. 182)
College Web LD : A great source to see how well various colleges serve students with learning differences. (Ep. 177)
The Character Collaborative : An attempt by an almost 300-member organizations to change how admissions is done. They want to see character count more in admissions. (Ep. 173)
Unigo : A great source for college reviews, college scholarships, college data and answers to challenging questions. (Ep. 172)
Transferology : Transferology makes transferring easy. It helps you know whether your credits will count at the schools you are considering transferring to. Mark strongly recommends any transfer student utilize this website. (Ep. 168)
Six Colleges : This website has very helpful videos from admission leaders at six highly selective small colleges that many people are not familiar with. The videos discuss applying to college, but they also describe some of the resources available at these campuses. (Ep. 166)
BlueVine : A great place to get your forgivable loan through the PPP program if you have a business. This can jump start your college fund. (Ep. 165)
Verified Scholarships : This website has over 3 million scholarships that have been pre-screened to make sure there are no scholarship scams. (Ep. 164)
The Higher Ed Newsletter : Click the sign-up button and receive a daily email with some of the most interesting and compelling stories about Higher Education that are in the News. (Ep. 163)
College Vizzy : A great source for finding virtual college visits, as well as for finding a fun list of things to look for on these visits. (Ep. 161)
Summer Programs : An excellent list with links to well over 100 hundred summer programs for high school students to attend. (Ep. 160)
Politico’s weekly roundup of stories related to education (Ep. 156)
National Student Clearinghouse : This is the definitive source for tracking vital formation like college enrollment, retention and graduation data. (Ep. 154)
Canada.ca : If you want to know more about studying in Canada go to the official website for the Country of Canada. (Ep. 151)
College Insights by ROAD 2 COLLEGE : A great website for seeing merit and need based awards that students received. It also provides other helpful data on each college. (Ep. 149)
going merry : Mark’s favorite website for searching for scholarships. (Ep. 148)
ABET : A non-profit organization that serves as an accrediting agency to validate the quality of academic program in areas like engineering, computer science, applied and natural sciences for associates, bachelors and masters programs. (Ep. 147)
Campus Safety and Security : The Department of Education’s website for studying crime and safety on each college campus. (Ep. 145)
Study in Europe : This is a fantastic website if you want to explore going to college in Europes. (Ep. 143)
The MEFA Institute: A Deep Dive Into the CSS Profile with Gail Holt of Amherst College : The best CSS PROFILE Walkthrough Mark has seen. It is by Gail Holt, Dean of Financial Aid at Amherst and she does this for MEFA. MEFA did a second CSS PROFILE Walkthrough that Mark also recommends. (Ep. 142)
A Complete FAFSA Walkthrough by Utah Higher Education Assistance Authority (UHEAA) : Mark’s favorite resource for helping students and parents with the 2021-22 FAFSA (Ep. 141)
Inside the Yale Admissions Office Podcast (Ep. 140)
City-Data.com : Mark’s favorite website for researching the surrounding area around the college (Ep. 139)
apstudents.collegeboard.org : If you want to know whether or not you will get college credit for your AP scores, or if you want to know what each schools AP policy is, then you want to go to apstudents.collegeboard.org (Ep. 138)
Coalition for College Virtual Fair on 9/16 : Come meet colleges from the 130 Coalition for Colleges (Ep. 137)
Direct Admit Nursing Programs : Mark’s favorite source for a list of BSN Direct Admit programs (Ep. 135)
If you are interested in learning more about 28 Jesuit colleges I recommend the Association of Jesuit colleges (Ep. 133)
Raj Chetty’s incredible research on colleges and so much more (Ep. 132)
Mark shares a summary of the important work Professor Scott Galloway of the Stern Business school at NYU is doing to sound the alarm about the dire financial straights that many colleges are in. Here is a link to sign up for a 90-minute session Prof Galloway is leading on Thursday, August 6th from 6-7:30 pm (Ep. 131)
Another great source to find scholarships that have been pre-screened and confirmed as viable and legitimate scholarships (Ep. 130)
A fantastic blog full of tips on how to win private scholarships (Ep. 129)
NYT Article-A Timeline of Key Supreme Court Cases on Affirmative Action (Ep. 128)
This website lets you know what the fall re-opening plans are for almost 300 colleges. It is updated multiple times in one day. (Ep. 126)
A great article by Shannon Insler of Student Loan Hero on the 8 best private student loans (Ep. 125)
Parent Loan Repayment Calculator (Ep. 123)
The Chronicle of Higher Education : They are tracking what each school’s plans are for the fall. They have an alphabetized list of schools with a hyperlink taking you to their plans and the best news is, they are updating it pretty much every day. (Ep. 122)
College Scorecard - US Department of Education (Ep. 121)
The Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (Ep. 120)
Gap year Research Consortium at Colorado College (Ep. 119)
IPEDS - Use the Data : A link to help you access IPEDS data that you can use to assess the financial health of each school. (Ep. 118)
Navigate 2020: Virtual Conference and College Fair : A huge online college fair and conference from May 4th through May 6th. (Ep. 118)
Admissions Testing Policy Updates in response to COVID-19 : A list of test optional schools that is being updated daily. (Ep. 118)
NACAC’s College Admission Status Update : A central resource of information about changes in college admission as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. (Ep. 117)
Common App : Take out a username and password, make sure you are logged in and then search for any college you are interested in and on their main page, you will see a hyperlink that says virtual tour, click this link to see which virtual tour a college wants you to see. (Ep. 114)
NCES College Navigator : College Navigator includes institutional data on programs offered, retention and graduation rates, prices, aid available, degrees awarded, campus safety, student loan defaults and accreditation. (Ep. 112)
CollegeScorecard.ed.gov : The College Scorecard is an online tool, created by the United States government, for consumers to compare the cost and value of higher education institutions in the United States. (Ep. 111)
CEED Directory of Cooperative Education & Internship Programs : A great source for information on the top colleges for co-op programs. (Ep. 110)
Your Free Career Test : Answer these 63 questions and get great insights into the careers that best match up with your interests. (Ep. 109)
Wikipedia : A great source for researching the history of colleges. (Ep. 105)
act.org : The official website of the ACT. You can track the changes coming to the ACT. (Ep. 103)
Jon Boeckenstedt blog : An outstanding blog where Jon Boeckenstedt gives his opinions on cutting edge admissions topics (Ep. 102)
Cappex Blog : A great source for articles about all topics related to college and college admissions (Ep. 101)
Scoir Blog : Another great college admission blog (Ep. 100)
Department of Education's Net Price Calculator Center : Access to all of the net price calculators in one place, plus so many other helpful links to other federal government websites about money and college (Ep. 98)
Pros and cons of the three biggest MOOCS-Cousera, EdX and Udacity : A YouTube video that covers the strengths and weaknesses of three of the largest Massive Open Online courses (MOOCS) platforms (Ep. 97)
The Chronicle of Higher Education : Well written articles about current hot topics and trends in higher eduction (Ep. 96)
Initialview : InitialView is the world leader in interview services (Ep. 95)
How to Raise a Successful Adult without overparenting (Ted Talk) : Fantastic Ted Talk about avoiding the pitfalls of overparenting (Ep. 93)
Jed Applerouth comments on the ACT : Great article on the recent changes to the ACT (Ep. 92)
Thomas Frank's 11 minute review of the best three task management apps : What the ACT changes mean for students (Ep. 91)
Common App's blog : You can hear webinars about changes to the Common App and you can read about what is new with the Common App (Ep. 90)
FAFSA 2020-2021 - FAFSA Full Walkthrough by Utah Futures : Great visual tool to help you complete the FAFSA for the current school year (Ep. 89)
List of colleges where Harvard’s current incoming law students received their Bachelor's degree : This list of where Harvard law students went to college is proof you don't have to go to an elite college to get in Harvard law school (Ep. 88)
College Board Landscape : The College Board's new tool to help colleges put SAT scores in their broader demographic context (Ep. 85)
Ulifeline : Your online guide for mental health (Ep. 84)
Coursera : Take free courses with leading college professors (Ep. 83)
Mental Health and Well-Being- How we better care for the whole student : A Barnes and Nobles report on how to help student mental health (Ep. 82)
Put the college in Google and click the News link and the video link under the Google search. Start reading everything and watching all the videos. : A tool to help us learn what is going on at a college that is newsworthy (Ep. 78)
The Twitter account for Inside Higher Ed : A great way to follow new developments in Higher Ed (Ep. 73)
This is the official Twitter account of Federal Student Aid : Follow new developments related to all things that have to do with the FAFSA and Federal student aid (Ep. 72)
The official Twitter account of the Common App : Follow new announcements and articles from the Common App (Ep. 71)
The official Twitter account of the College Board : Great source of new information on the SAT test and AP exams (Ep. 70)
Campus Reel : Campus Reel is like a YouTube that is exclusively filled with information on colleges (Ep. 69)
UCAS : The number one website for information on going to college in Europe (Ep. 67)
The official SAT app : An app that gives you practice SAT questions to help your SAT scores (Ep. 66)
How to write good recommendation letters : A guide to writing evaluations for MIT (Ep. 65)
Why This College Essay Guide + Examples : A guide on how to answer the very common, "Why should you apply to our school" essay by Ethan Sawyer (Ep. 64)
Real essays that worked with the Johns Hopkins admissions review : Former real college admissions essays that students who applied to Johns Hopkins submitted. The website include feedback from JHU admission officers about those essays (Ep. 62)
US Department of Education : Chalked full of information about federal grants, loans, laws, data and other helpful articles and websites (Ep. 58)
Hechinger Report : In depth reporting covering innovation and inequality in higher education (Ep. 53)
College Affordability Guide : Data galore when it comes to college affordability (Ep. 52)
Inside Higher Ed's newsletter and webinars : Exceptional one hour webinars chalked full of insights on cutting edge issues that impact higher education (Ep. 51)
The blog at College Kickstart : Mark's favorite source for following trends in early applications and the decisions colleges make with these Early Action and Early Decision applications. (Ep. 47)
Official SAT past tests : Great place to find practice SAT tests (Ep. 45)
Official ACT practice tests : Great place to find practice ACT tests (Ep. 44)
NACAC College Fairs : A great resource to find large college fairs that travel to over 20 cities around the country (Ep. 43)
College Data : A user-friendly website chalked full of data on admissions, money, campus life, students and academics (Ep. 42)
Revolution Prep webinars : A great source for webinars on college admissions. Mark has done multiple webinars on this platform to help families (Ep. 41)
Applerouth Experts Corner : Mark's favorite blog about college admissions test scores (Ep. 40)
The FAFSA Walkthrough by Step Up Utah for 2019 : A great tool to help you complete the FAFSA. This YouTube video is Mark's favorite single source to help families complete the FAFSA. (Ep. 39)
YouVisit : Mark's favorite website for virtual college tours (Ep. 38)
College Results : Mark's favorite website to compare graduation rate statistics for colleges for kids from different backgrounds (Ep. 37)
NACUBO : Mark's favorite website to study endowment statistics (Ep. 36)
Public University Honors Colleges : Mark's favorite website to do research on public honors colleges (Ep. 35)
BigFuture : A visually appealing website that is one of Mark's favorite websites to do college research. This is run by the College Board. (Ep. 34)
You Science : Mark's favorite resource to help students understand what majors and what careers students have a natural aptitude for (Ep. 31)
Saving for College : Mark's favorite website about 529 plans, and all things related to articles and resources to help with saving for college and paying for college (Ep. 29)