Not sure where to begin your college research? There are tons of online resources to help students match up with the right schools. In this article, I'll outline ten of the best sites to conduct your college search and then explain how to get started researching colleges using three of the best sites. Within each section, the sites are ordered from the absolute best to those that are still good but not #1.
Starting Out: The Best Data-Driven Sites to Begin Your College Search
If you've just begun researching colleges and need some help finding schools you might be interested in, check out these sites to help get you started.
Research.com
This site offers thousands of college rankings and degree guides to help you find the best college for you. In addition to general best of lists, you can find rankings for affordability, online degrees, and specific locations and academic subjects using their ranking search tool.
Research.com is especially useful if you know what you what you want to study, since there are rankings for all kinds of academic subjects from economics to immunology. Their ranking methodology supports this, since it heavily weights number of research grants.
College Board’s Big Future
This is a good place to find out about colleges if you’re just starting out in your search. It caters to students who might not know where to begin and guides you through the research process. There's a guide called "College Search Step-by-Step" for students who are unsure of how to go about the search process. It will ask specific questions about what you are looking for in a school and give you a "snapshot" of your preferences to help you decide where to apply.
On the main college search page, you can find college matches based on different criteria that you’re interested in, or you can search for schools directly. You can also compare schools, but the amount of data is less staggering than some other sites, so it may be easier to digest.
College Navigator
This site (put out by the National Center for Educational Statistics) doesn’t have the prettiest interface, but it’s useful for finding reliable data about any college in the country. If you already know what school you want, you can search for it directly. You can also search by state or even area code. There are filters for degree level and type of college as well, so you can search for just public or private colleges or just 4-year colleges.
Each college has a page that lists relevant data including information about cost and financial aid, admissions, programs offered, graduation rates, athletics, and other general statistics.
The downside of this site is that the information can be overwhelming and difficult to digest because there is so much data. If you prefer something less dry and scientific you might want to look elsewhere, but if you’re just looking for the facts with no frills this is a good resource.
The Inside Scoop: Sites With the Best Student Feedback and College Matchmaking
This next section highlights sites that are best for when you already have an idea of which schools you're thinking about and are interested in comparing them and learning more about whether they're really a good fit.
Appily
Appily (foremerly known as Cappex) is a great site for comparing schools, calculating admissions chances, calculating financial aid, and just figuring out if a school is a good match for you in general. You will be asked to create a profile, which then allows the site to figure out which schools might work best based on what matters most to you. There are also student reviews, so in addition to comparing hard data you will also be able to compare how people feel about the school. There’s even a feature that helps you plan campus visits!
This site has one of the best balances between comprehensive data and a user-friendly experience that tells you what you really want to know about colleges. It will even take you as far as your application! Each school that you put on your list of favorites has a link that takes you directly to the school's website where you can begin the application process.
Niche
This site gives you access to tons of statistics as well as student reviews and letter grades for different aspects of student life (this is actually where the college grades on Chegg, a site I recommend later, come from). You’ll also see lists of the best schools in different categories based on reviews.
If you’re looking for a comprehensive overview of what’s offered by colleges, this is a great resource. There are a lot of statistics to wade through, but you can also create a free profile and get matched up with colleges. This site is nice because it can get really technical and specific, but it also gives you the tools to search for schools without feeling too overwhelmed. You can keep a running list of schools that you’re interested in, and the site will help you notify representatives for these schools of your interest if you think any of them are especially good matches.
One aspect of Niche that I'm not so crazy about is the amount of distracting promotions and ads for other related sites that are involved. It makes things a bit more cluttered and confusing to navigate and kind of turned me off from using this site despite the fact that it presents a lot of great information.
College Confidential
You might be familiar with College Confidential for its (sometimes less than trustworthy) discussion forums, but it also has a great college search feature. You can fill out your preferences in over 20 different categories including location, majors, Greek life, party scene, and special services. Based on your answers and how important these factors are to you, you’ll get matched with schools that fit you best (out of a database of over 4,500 schools that includes schools outside of the US).
I’d recommend this as a starting point if you're not sure which schools you’re interested in - it will help you figure out what’s most important to you and give you some initial ideas. It's super easy to pin and compare schools, although the information pages are a little confusing and not as nice to look at as the school matching interface. If you click on a school, you are linked out to another site called "College View" for the statistics, which makes things a bit harder to navigate compared to other sites where all information is internal.
Unigo
Get it? Go to Uni? It sounds like the Brits are responsible for this one, which made me suspicious, but this site is pretty cool. It has a modern design and includes tons of reviews in written and video format from students at the colleges. Based on student feedback, schools are rated on a scale of 1-10 for a bunch of different factors including campus safety, political activity, arts culture, Greek life, intellectual life, and more.
Each college page has financial aid and admissions statistics, a built in map of the surrounding area, and statistics on student life such as the number of campus organizations and Greek houses.You can also make a list of schools and compare them across different metrics like tuition and selectivity.
It does seem like they’re still working on adding more statistics about academics, so this site is a bit light on data in some areas. Still, it’s fun to use and will give you a different perspective than other sites with its multimedia format; there are lots of pictures of schools from students in addition to the video reviews.
Taking Action: The Best Sites to Learn About Paying for and Applying to College
Once you have a pretty solid list of which colleges you want to apply to, you can use these sites to help you navigate college applications and paying for school.
Fastweb
This site is oriented towards helping students search for scholarships, but it will also help you find colleges that may interest you. You can set up an account for free that will allow you to locate colleges and scholarships that fit your specific needs. There are helpful blog articles on the site as well that have advice on scholarships and colleges.
You can also search for student loans on Fastweb - you just have to answer a few questions and you’ll get a list of all your loan choices. This site is a nice user-friendly means of finding scholarships and loans that will help you to avoid getting too overwhelmed with your options.
It’s also a good site to keep in mind going forward, since it has resources for career planning and finding internship opportunities as well. If you're practically-minded and are serious about finding scholarships, you should definitely try this site out. You may want to use another platform for the college search process because Fastweb doesn't have as much information or tools for finding colleges as it does for finding scholarships and loans.
Peterson’s
This site is good for learning about application timelines and getting yourself organized for college as well as searching for schools that meet your criteria. There are articles with helpful tips about choosing colleges, applying to college, and getting financial aid and scholarships. You'll get fast stats about colleges and suggestions about other schools that you may like based on your searches.
This isn’t my favorite site in terms of its presentation of college statistics. However, it does provide advice in other areas that is more specific than other sites and may help answer questions you have about the application process and how to actually follow through on your college decision.
How to Start Your College Search
Your mind is probably reeling from all of these options, so to make it easier, we've created an easy-to-use college list building tool that will not only help you find schools that fit your needs but also ensure you balance reach, match, and safety schools. To get started, just input some basic information like your GPA and test scores and add any schools you already you know you want to apply to. From there, you can work with the AI assistant to narrow down your options based on categories including location, size, and cost.
What's Next?
Aiming high in your college search? Read this article on how to get into the top schools in the nation.
If you're worried about your chances of getting into college period, check out this list of the easiest schools to get into.
Building a killer college application is hard work. Find out the how to create a versatile application and what not to do in your college essay.
The Common Application makes it easy to apply to a bunch of different schools but only fill out one application! Find out which schools accept the Common App.
