Welcome everyone to College Goers Thursday!

How has everything been so far? Hope you are enjoying every bit of it. A few weeks ago, US News Education published an article on various tools available to aid the college admission process.

  • Net price calculator

The first tool to aid College admission process provided by US News is the Net price calculator. Net price calculator is a tool to help families estimate their out of pocket expense to attend College. Using this tool will help you understand how a college’s financial aid policies may apply to your specific situation. In order to use the calculator, you will need information about your income, taxes and some other financial obligations. In addition, you will need information about your assets (including savings, investments, home equity, and other assets.) Many US Colleges have calculators on their websites like Dartmouth,

Purdue University  and Amherst University. Starting Oct. 29, each higher education institution in the United States is required to post a net price calculator on its respective college website.

Also read this to know more about how to use an aid calculator.

  • Evernote

Evernote, though initially not designed specifically for college admission process, now is widely used by students and parents to produce and organize their notes, opinions, and experiences in one place.

On this Eric Berg, vice president for enrollment at the College of St. Scholastica in Minnesota says “It’s vital that students don’t spend any time during their senior year idle when it comes to the college admissions process and programs like [Evernote] only help. A modern-day student who says, ‘I don’t have any tools to be organized’ hasn’t looked.”

You can also look at some tips for using evernote for school and colleges here.

  • Virtual tours

These days for college students the tedious and sometimes costly campus visits have been supplemented with Virtual Tours. Virtual tour sites such as eCampusTours and YourCampus360 allow students to see a campus from the convenience of the couch. To view some more tools to enjoy the virtual campus tour you can look at this article from US News.

  • Intel AppUp

Intel has come up with Intel AppUp where there are dozens of Apps available. Among these apps, are also some, available for students who can really take advantage of these apps, some are free and some for minimal charges.  Some noticeable ones are:

  • SAT Vocabulary practice The SAT Vocabulary Practice for Dummies App focuses exclusively on the vocabulary you need to know to get a good verbal score on the SAT exam. 
  • SAT Practice This app features more than 150 practice questions covering critical reading, writing, and math skills.

Check out the Intel AppUp for more apps which are beneficial and suitable to you.

  • Skype: 

In addition to the Virtual tour application, Skype is also widely used in the college admission procedure. The free video chat service allows admission officers to connect with prospective students, who are miles away.

Berg here remarked “The opportunity for programs like Skype, where you have immediate and prolonged video interaction with schools, is almost as good as sitting in the office of an admissions counselor, Skype provides instant gratification [for students].”

  • Facebook:

Facebook pages of MBA programs like the Wharton School and the Yale School of Management provide another method of keeping up with important program news.

This also gives students and parents the advantage when researching the culture of a school, says Kerpen. “Facebook allows unprecedented access, insider’s access, to what’s going on at colleges,” he notes. “For students and parents, it’s a major opportunity to really see what’s going on, [and] what students and alumni are talking about.”

Facebook is also another great source for apps. You may come across thousands of College apps which will aid you. For instance College Toolbox, SAT Quest, Grockit and many more.

  • Twitter:

US News also reported Twitter being a powerful tool to observe conversations. Kerpen says “Whereas a college or university may be able to filter the discussions taking place on its Facebook page, it cannot control the conversation on Twitter. Leverage the opportunity to find out what real people are saying.”

Kerpen suggests students and parents use Twitter to connect with others who have unfiltered information about a school.

So which tool did you like the most?