My daughter Katherine is starting her junior year of high school, which means it's time to start looking at colleges. My wife Patt has already bought a shelf full of college guidebooks and is making travel plans to visit several campuses.
The other day, I decided to help with the search by using some of the cool new Internet sites designed to help students find and apply to a college and finance their education.
But when we started using the sites, we found them to be a mixed blessing.
These sites attempt to serve as a computer dating service that links students with colleges, filtering recommendations by region, academic quality, size of school, best values and lifestyle. Given the 4,000-plus universities in this country, these college-search sites face a daunting task to produce something insightful.
None of the sites I used deserved an A, and most of them had glaring weaknesses. Yet the exercise was valuable, because it helped the three of us think about the types of colleges that might be best for Katherine.
Each site has basically the same setup. You answer a series of questions to determine what you're looking for in a college and what type of college your child might be qualified for. All of the sites we looked at are free. They all carry some sort of advertising along with special promotional offers such as student loans, credit cards and other buying opportunities.
My favorite of the bunch was Embark.com, which has a number of helpful features, including a tool for finding the right college, a scholarship search engine, information on financial aid and tips for getting into the college of your choice. For us, the most useful part is the college MatchMaker feature, which helps narrow your choices. You begin by selecting the regions of the country you might consider. Then you rate a series of options on a six-point scale from "very" interested to "not at all."
My wife and I indicated a preference for a college with a small student body and answered questions about Katherine's interest in sororities, specific sports, academic disciplines, student activities and other criteria. The process took us about 20 minutes. Coming up with answers was occasionally difficult, but that's the whole idea. It forces you to think about what's important.
