Thinking of transferring?

Make an informed decision!


Choosing a college can be tricky. But, there are many resources available to help you figure out what school would be a good fit. 

There are two new college and university review websites that are designed to be unbiased (some widely used college reviews are criticized for promoting schools unjustly). In addition, these new sites take into account some other considerations that might be important to your particular needs as a student.

College Scorecard

https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/

College Scorecard is a government-based college review website maintained by the Department of Education. The search features allow for the usual majors and degrees offered, but in addition, students can search by specialized missions (e.g. women only, historically black colleges) and size of school. What makes this website fun and easy-to-use is that the results appear as cards with basic school information. Students can even rank results by how much money typical graduates earn after college. In addition, this website prominently features information about financial aid, which is an important factor for most students.

The Washington Monthly College Guide

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/toc_2015.php

The Washington Monthly College Guide is an independent and more objective resource for choosing the right college. This guide asks: “What colleges are doing for the country”. This is truly a unique resource that tries to address other concerns students might have while choosing a school. For instance, this resource ranks schools based on their “contribution to the public good”. The three main areas include:

1)     Social Mobility (how many low income students are recruited and graduate)

2)     Research (how much original scholarship this school contributes)

3)     Service (how active is the school in promoting giving back to the community)

While there are many resources available to consult when deciding on the right college for you, these new resources offer a fresh perspective and make researching this decision kind of fun.

To find out more, stop by SWC's Transfer Center in the Cesar Chavez Student Services Building!