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Today’s topic is timely because parents and students are in the process of narrowing down their college lists for this year’s application season. Just exactly how do you compare colleges and determine which colleges should make it on the final list?

College Visits

Hopefully you’ve made some college visits either in the spring of last year or over the summer. Fall is the best time to visit those colleges that are on the short lists–the ones your student sees himself attending. College visits are a key element in comparing colleges. Your student can use those visits to compare students, campus facilities and even professors and courses if they sit in on some classes while visiting. All those factors play an integral part in the college selection.

Statistical college comparisons

Of course, as with any large purchase, you should also do price comparisons. You should compare value, financial aid awards, size, location, rankings and majors. The best way to do this is with side-by-side comparisons. I recommend using these three programs:

College Navigator

The National Center for Education Statistics has a comprehensive site with all the data collected to quickly and easily compare colleges statistically. Unfortunately, due to the government shut down, the site is currently down. But bookmark the site and hopefully it will be back up soon with all the current data.

FindTheBest

FindTheBest gathers information and build the tools that people need to make sense of it all, from visual icons to smart filters to scatterplots. It’s the ultimate research hub for making informed decisions.The program provides you with their smart rank, acceptance rates, total undergraduate students, average SAT scores, and tuition. You can adjust the data by adding various parameters as well.

Zinch

Like other college comparison tools, Zinch provides you with the parameters for each college and allows you to pick and choose the ones that fit your student. But Zinch takes it a step further and matches students with the colleges and colleges recruit them if they are interested.

College Factual

Unlike other college ranking systems, College Factual serves as a decision-making hub throughout the entire college search process, sharing outcomes-based data such as average student loan debt per student and default rates; how well colleges retain and graduate students; graduates’ starting salaries and earning potential; and return on investment based on cost of a degree.

Input from current students and faculty

Some of the best comparison information you can gather comes from current students and faculty. Fortunately the internet has made it easy to connect with these people and get a first-hand impression from the ones who know–current students and staff. Here are just a few ways your student can connect:

• CollegeWeekLive.com-This is a virtual college fair where students can speak via video conference to current students, admissions officers, and financial aid officers. These fairs occur throughout the year and if you sign up on their site you will get notifications.
• Facebook and Twitter-Social media is one of the best places to find other students and connect with the colleges and interact.
• YoUniversitytv.com-This site posts videos of colleges, and they are not your typical campus tours.
• Unigo.com-On this site parents and students can connect with other students and read student reviews, ask questions of college advisors, and watch videos of the colleges.
• YouTube-YouTube is a good place to see videos posted by students and the colleges themselves.