R&R – College Information

skip to: Exploring Careers and Choosing a Major • Finding the Right College • Getting Accepted • Paying for College • Surviving College

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Exploring Careers and Choosing a Major

Websites

• CareerOneStop This is a suite of career and job information websites from the U.S. Department of Labor. It includes America’s Career InfoNet, a resource that will help you explore career opportunities and make informed employment and education choices by using their user-friendly occupation and industry information, salary data, career videos, education resources, self-assessment tools and career exploration assistance.
• Mapping Your Future Mapping Your Future is a public-service web site providing free career, college, financial aid, and money management information and services. It features CareerShip, a free online career exploration adventure for middle and high school students.
• Occupational Outlook Handbook This is the online version of the printed copy published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Outlook Handbook tells you the training and education needed, earnings, expected job prospects, what workers do on the job and working conditions. In addition, the Handbook links to information about the job market in each state.
• Quintessential Careers Quintessential Careers is a comprehensive career, job, and college site, offering free expert career and job-hunting advice through the use of articles, tools, tips, samples, and tutorials. You can search by industry, geography, and job-seeker type. It also includes a section on choosing a college major.
• CollegeBoard’s Majors & Careers Central This website provides profiles of college majors and the kinds of careers related to those majors.
• MyMajors.com Take the short My Majors quiz and receive five college majors matching your interests and academic experience. You will receive a free advisement report summarizing your inputs and ten ranked major recommendations.

Finding the Right College

Websites

• Petersons.com Just like Peterson’s print college guides, their website offers a lot of free information on college profiles, contact information, admissions and college entrance exams.
• The Princeton Review This website not only gives you information on all aspects of college planning but also includes a quiz to find the college that best fits a student and gives lists of colleges by unique catagories such as most politically active, best sports school, best social life and more.
• CollegeBoard This is a comprehensive college planning website offering college profiles, financial planning and admissions information. It also offers a chance for you to put in up to 3 college names so that you can do a side by side comparison.
• Niche Colleges. Students can read more than 1 million in-depth student reviews on more than 8,000 schools, get college recommendations, explore majors, and get matched to more than 3.2 million scholarships. Also includes college rankings.
• Best Colleges – U.S. New & World Report Colleges ranked in many different categories.
• CampusTours.com Take a tour of your college campus of choice from home. The college tours can be online videos about the campus or 360-degree panoramic views.

Getting Accepted

Websites

• Test Preparation
  • ACT Provides all the information you need to take the ACT – test dates and places, fees, how to register, how to prepare and how to review your scores. It even includes some free test preparation quizzes.
  • College Board Provides all the information you need to take the SAT – test dates and places, fees, how to register, how to prepare and how to review your scores. It even includes some sample SAT questions and offers advice on how to answer the question.
  • Princeton Review Information is given about both the ACT and the SAT exams. Free practice tests are available for both.
  • Fair Test – The National Center for Fair and Open Testing This websites discusses the fairness of standardized testing and lists over 700 colleges and universities that do not emphasize ACT or SAT scores in their admission process.
• College Applications
  • SparkNotes Sparknotes offers an excerpt from the book 10 Things You Gotta Know About College Application Essays to help you step-by-step with an essay. There is also a link to a message board to get advice and feedback about your essay.
  • EssayEdge Here you will find Application Essay Writing 101, a six part essay writing course to help you with each part of your essay.

Paying for College

Websites

• FAFSA – Application for Federal Student Aid (School Codes) The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is required for all students who are seeking federal financial aid assistance. You can fill out the form and submit it online.
• Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC) – Providing Illinois students with information and assistance to help make education beyond high school accessible and affordable.
  Open Meeting Link for students interested in higher education or currently enrolled needing financial aid assistance. They can attend any Monday 11am-12pm. Hosted by Elizabeth Barrera, ISAC, College of DuPage District.
• FinAid! FinAid is a public service, award-winning website that has grown into the most comprehensive source of student financial aid information, advice and tools — on or off the web.
• CollegeNET – Scholarship Search This website from CollegeNET offers 2 ways to find scholarships. You can search for scholarships by doing a keyword search or you can create a profile and the database will find scholarships that match your personal profile.
• Federal Student Aid The U.S. Department of Education has provided all the information you need on Federal financial aid on this user friendly website. It will walk you through all the financial steps of preparing, choosing, applying, funding and repaying your loans.
• FastWeb This is one of the largest and most reputable scholarship search databases on the internet. To search you will have to create a profile that will match you to over 1.3 million scholarships listed on this database.
• eStudentLoan After registering and following the step-by-step guide, you will see what types of loan programs you qualify for, both private and Federal. You can then either request an application or apply online. All terms of the loans will be shown in order to make an informed decision.

Surviving College

Websites

• GoCollege GoCollege brings useful, unbiased and up-to-date college related information to students, parents and education professionals. All aspects of college are covered including a section called College Survival to help you make the best of your college years.
• Surviving College This is a student’s guide to the ins and outs of college. It offers advice on how to get along with a roommate, have fun on a student’s budget, handle the basics of living on your own, make it through college classes or even figure out what to do when you graduate.