HOW TO USE COLLEGE SEARCH ENGINES

There are now many college search engines on the web, but very few good ones. Be careful of your time and money as most of the sites are trying to sell you something (usually many things), while pretending to offer you search assistance. One sure way to tell you have a bogus search engine is they will ask very few questions (as few as three!) and then start to find colleges for you. It's not that simple! Even the good search engines are fronts for future sales, so be careful and leave your Visa card in your wallet as you use their web site.

Bouncing around between search engines every time you think about colleges will drive you crazy, so pick one and use it a lot. To research and verify that the schools suggested by the search engines actually fit you, read the guide books (e.g. the Fiske Guide) and also go to the individual college web sites… and visit!

The best search engines we know are listed here:

Princeton Review   (http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/)

College Board   (http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/index.jsp)

College Data   (http://www.collegedata.com/)