Starting Your College Search

Welcome to all of those newly rising seniors!  This is an exciting time in your high school career.  Most of you have completed your standardized tests and have your college lists forming.  I wanted to pass along some advice from my experience searching for colleges.  I know it was 4 years ago, scary yes, but I still remember some great tips that helped me.

I used great sites like College Board, ACT, and US World and News Report to help me find different schools that I may not have heard of before.  On all of these sites there are different ways to search, by location, size, program, price, extra curricular activities, and many other criteria.  This is how I found Depauw University, one of the greatest college radio stations in the country.  You are also able to side-by-side compare schools in many cases.

Another tip: use your counselor/guidance office as a resource!  These men and women are trained to help you make a decision, and many of them were once involved in the college admissions process themselves.  Spend sometime flipping through brochures and talking to the different representatives that come to your school.  Sign up for mailings and information of schools that you have any sort of interest in.  You can always throw extra materials away, but sometimes the mailers are different from what you find on the school's website.

You can also start looking at scholarships through fastweb.com or other similar sites.  A lot of these scholarships are small amounts but every little bit can help, trust me.

I hope all of these tips help steer you in the right direction!  If I can be of any more help please let me know by emailing me at kwollner@gwu.edu or leave a comment with your personal tips!

Good luck!