Searching for a School
Internet offers wealth of college information
10 November 1999
By Anick Jesdanun
Associated Press
The ritual of applying for college is going high-tech. High
school students are now heading to the Web to get information
instantly and conveniently.
From the venerable College Board, which runs the SAT
college entrance exams, to upstarts such as BestSchoolsUSA.com, online research services
want to help students pick schools, write essays, even pay for
tuition. Most sites are free.
Though seniors are the ones most focused now, high school
juniors are already surfing the Web for college data even
though they have a year to go before applying. "The Internet
is like a bridge to tons of information," says Ashvin Dewan, a
junior at Hightower High School in Missouri City, Texas.
His guidance counselor, Paula Cox, is grateful. She says
online services have allowed students to research schools
themselves, freeing counselors to focus on advice.
Other counselors urge caution, however. Just about anyone,
they point out, can set up a Web site catering to a high
school audience. Commercial Web services might lure students
into a scam or give bad information, such as an incorrect
application deadline.
"Web sites' information can be very, very unreliable," says
Stephen D. Singer, director of college counseling at the
Horace Mann School in New York.
One site in particular, ecollegebid.org, irks Joyce Smith, executive
director of the National Association for College Admission
Counseling in Alexandria, Va. That site treats selecting a
college like an auction. Families bid for a certain amount of
tuition, and schools willing to accept that then respond.
"It's a totally different spin on college," she says. "It's
more like a novelty than the start of an education process."
Even though Internet sites allow guidance counselors to
focus on guidance and counseling, Smith worries that some
students might try to bypass counselors completely and forego
their advice.
"A child can sit at a computer for hours searching for
information, and the only way a high school would know," she
notes, "is if the child has to ask for a transcript."
Eliminating the relationship is never the goal, insists
Young Shin, president and chief executive of embark.com in
San Francisco. He says no site can meet all of a student's
needs.
Besides the basic research available on the Internet,"every
student always needs special counseling and advice," he says.
Leading Web sites such as The Princeton Review's http://www.review.com/ and Peterson's http://www.collegequest.com/ let students
narrow their choices based on size, location and other
personal preferences. Before, students had to use CD-ROM
services at their schools' computers or leaf through books and
college brochures.
The nonprofit College Board has a site, collegeboard.org,
offering similar services. It recently announced plans to
create a for-profit site, collegeboard.com, to offer
additional features this spring.
Some sites compile details on academic requirements and
campus life, and many link directly to the colleges' own Web
sites.
Students can also apply to some schools online through some
of the commercial sites, using a special form or digital image
of a college's own application.
Help is also available with tuition. Embark.com is running
a promotional sweepstakes drawing with a grand prize of four
years' tuition, or up to $80,000. Embark and other sites have
databases with scholarship information.
"You'd be amazed at how much money is out there and how
much money goes unclaimed," says Evan Schnittman, vice
president at the New York-based Princeton Review.
Not for lack of searching. The number of registered users
at his site rose at least five times this year -- and should
increase as peak season nears.
Of course, the computer will not write the application
essay -- although, for $60 or more (major credit cards
accepted), several services will edit essays and offer
suggestions on content. Others offer sample essays and writing
tips for free.
Heather Goode, a high school senior in Davie, Fla., relied
on BestSchoolsUSA.com and other sites to explore colleges in
her area. She wants to remain near her family, so she is
thinking of the University of Miami.
She prefers the Internet over visiting her guidance
counselor's office during the busy school day. "You can do it
at your leisure," she says. "If you're bored at 3 o'clock in
the morning, you go online."
The results won Mammen Zachariah, a freshman at Carnegie
Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
"If you use the Internet, you get more information about
each individual college," he says. "If I didn't have the
Internet, I wouldn't have applied here. Through the Internet,
I knew it was a good school."
Expert provides tips on applying, interviewing
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