By Anick Jesdanun
AP Internet Writer

NEW YORK -- 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.

Traffic was heavy at many sites, anticipating Monday's application deadline for early decision and early action at several leading colleges and universities. But peak season has yet to come, with traditional application deadlines of December or January.

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, Ms. 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 www.review.com and Peterson's 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 plans to announce Monday 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."

Distributed by The Associated Press (AP)