A college search game-changer

Posted by Andrew in Recruitment, Web 2.0 on Jan 5th, 2009 | 4 comments

Wow, this one’s really interesting.  It seems that 1st Financial Bank USA has launched a site called CollegeData, a place where students can search for colleges, sort through the financial aid process, and perhaps most interestingly, calculate their odds of getting in with the Admissions Tracker.  Credit card and student loan offers also abound on the site.

The Admissions tracker is interesting because students can indicate whether they’ve applied to a specific school and also if they’ve been accepted, waitlisted, or denied.  Other students can then assess their chances of getting in based on that student’s GPA and ACT or SAT score.  Also factored into the tracker are legacy and athlete codes.

I don’t see CollegeData putting a huge dent in the college search market — services like CollegeBoard, Zinch, and Peterson’s definitely have the stronghold there.  It does, however, put an interesting spin on the process in that it aggregates data that would typically remain in-house.  An interesting prospect in this first work week of the new year.  How will Web 2.0 affect you in 2009?



4 Responses to “A college search game-changer”

  1. Robert S. says:
    January 5, 2009 at 12:32 pm

    A lot of small sites are popping up like this. Like you say, the existing players seem to be at the forefront of all the discussion.

    Reply
    • Andrew says:
      January 5, 2009 at 1:35 pm

      Thanks for the comment — it doesn’t seem like this type of thing will ever go mainstream, but it does suggest the power of the web as we know it!

      Reply
  2. Mike says:
    January 6, 2009 at 9:35 am

    You might want to include the website http://www.morethangrades.com. This site not only allows students to find information about colleges, it offers personal advice on any college admission related question, links to colleges, (and college representatives), and of course scholarship money. They currently have a $20,000 show us why you are “More Than a Grade” video based scholarship. But perhaps the best part of MoreThanGrades.com is that they do not get in the way. They do not filter email through their site. They let students get in direct contact with the colleges and let colleges speak directly with the student. The site is easy to use, (does not require checking off a million little boxes) and all profiles are private. There are even resources for parents and teachers.

    Reply
  3. Dan Rosenfield says:
    April 5, 2009 at 3:30 pm

    Get Recruited http://www.get-recruited.com is another site that matches students to post secondary educational options.

    Reply

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