Website of the Week

Big Future -- College Board College Search

Big Future College Board College Search 
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/find-colleges

The same College Board that administers the SAT exam and AP exams has compiled a great site to search for colleges. Users can search for a specific college by name. But the cool features of this site appear when users have no idea where they want to go!

Check out the tab “I’m not sure where to start.” A guide will walk users through how they might want to begin their search. If you want to stay within 500 miles of your home, you can search that. If you want to search by majors you are interested in, you can search that.

Anyone can use the site without creating an account (which is free), but the best features come into play when users create a profile. Let’s say you want a college in Arizona or California, and you know you want a degree in business. Now how about if you know your grades are good but maybe not straight A’s? You can ask for colleges that are less selective. How about public or private? Do you want a faith-based institution or not? How about availability of housing? How about diversity on campus? You can create a profile of exactly what you are looking for and the site will pull college profiles that best match your criteria.

The profiles of each college have layer after layer of information. It starts with an “At a Glance” page with basic information like application deadlines, location, size, basic cost information, average financial aid packages, and average time to graduation.

Now head down deeper into the profile to find more information about deadlines, all the programs offered and what percentage of students are in each. The tab for “Campus Life” breaks down the student body by gender, ethnicity, living on campus or not, and whether they are part-time or full-time students. Campus clubs and groups are listed as well. Are you looking for an active LGBTQ organization? Maybe a Women’s Center, Veteran’s services, even on campus child-care, these and other resources are listed.

For students looking to transfer in there is a tab just for information specific to transfers. This page tells what the average GPA admitted is, what is required with the application, as well any special requirements for transfers. Each profile also has a link directly to the official college website.

Those who have created an account can “Add to My Colleges” and create a list of profiles that will be saved. Users can create side-by-side comparisons of colleges on their saved lists.

Big Future is a great place to start a college search. But it especially shines at getting users more specific information to narrow a college search to a perfect match for them.

Review by Sarah Way, SWC Librarian