States simplify college search via Web

By Dorie Turner

updated 1:16 p.m. ET Sept. 24, 2006

ATLANTA - With her first child headed for college this fall and two more soon to follow, Carol Wright was lost.

Campus tours, applications, financial aid forms, transcripts, SAT scores, class planning — and that was just the beginning.

"It's unbelievable," the Carrollton, Ga., mother said. "You don't know where to start or what to do. It's trial and error, at the mercy of everybody telling me what to do."

Then she heard about Georgia's year-old Web site, gacollege411.org — a one-stop shop for applying to the state's colleges and requesting financial aid. Modeled after a similar site in North Carolina, Georgia's has already registered more than 100,000 students and families in just 18 months.

Georgia is now among about 35 states with such sites, an effort by education officials to make college more accessible by demystifying the daunting application process while making it easier for students to enroll in schools within their borders.

The $1.5 million site includes free prep classes for the SAT college-entrance exam, a class planner for students entering high school, applications to more than 100 colleges, virtual campus tours and information on getting one of the state's full-ride, lottery-funded scholarships.

Most states' sites have information on every college in the state — both public and private — and what kind of programs are offered.

But they do have private-sector competition, such as princetonreview.com.

Rob Franek, publisher of Princeton Review, said his company's site has many of the same features but takes a national perspective. It also includes annual rankings based on student surveys about quality-of-life issues.

"We're unapologetic listeners to student opinion," Franek said.

But some state sites offer advantages unavailable elsewhere, including the ability to electronically apply for state-sponsored scholarships. For the individual states, the sites also help standardize admissions technologies and directly support efforts to bolster access to college.

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