free college application management online

As Seniors near the stage of intense application work, they may be interested in learning about some free websites that offer help on the application front -- that is, help in organizing the application materials and creating short cuts for students who plan to file multiple applications. These websites aim to help students cut out the redundancy of the multiple application process. There are a number of sites that are geared toward this goal, but, to be expected, some seem to be more helpful than others.

This review is particularly focused on trying to evaluate their usefulness to a student from Maryland who might have at least a couple of Maryland college choices on his/her list.

Embark.com is a new website, at least in its current form. (It is, I believe, linked to the Princeton Review). I hear that it is promoting itself loudly within the high schools. It CLAIMS that once you fill in 1 app, it automatically pre-fills your others. Maybe that's true but it is not at all clear that it’s true from initial use as a non-registered user... If you run a MD application/college search, it quickly becomes clear that the number of online apps that it links to is very few, and the number of "auto-fill PDFs" that it links to is also limited. Until they make application links to more institutions (or at least to more in MD), it's not likely to be terribly useful to a MD student who has his/her eye on at least a couple of colleges within the state. But they do claim that they are "adding more applications every day" so perhaps this is a site to check out again in a little while.

Xap.com seems a far better avenue for application simplification/organization at this point. It offers students access to 800+ online applications. Of those 800, it's missing a bunch of critical MD institutions. BUT, it links to marylandmentor.org - which then allows you to link to a lot of online MD applications. And it looks like you can then organize your MD apps within your whole Xap account.

Collegedata.com is another one. However, this site may be far more useful in other ways (the admissions tracker tool, for example). In terms of its application assistance, it links to the Common Application website (1 application that can be used for over 300 member institutions), but that's not so useful when you can go straight to the source. (commonapp.org). Then, it also offers something brand new called "the Universal Common App" which sounds very exciting and promising, but at this point there are only 51 member institutions.... how universal is that? Within a couple of years, though, this may be worth paying attention to. Perhaps the "Universal Common App" will one day be the simplest way to apply to multiple institutions at once.

There's also Collegenet.com which links to lots of online apps - but only a limited number of MD institutions pop up if you do a specific "Maryland" search.

Also there's www.princetonreview.com/college/apply/acememb.asp which can link to 700+ online applications - and Peterson's which also has a huge long list of colleges and will allow you to link either to a college's own online app or to the Common Application. Both sites seem to have features that allow you to manage numerous apps from numerous sources within the one site.

Be aware that this review does not come from experience as an account holder -- anyone who actually registers and begins using any of these sites is likely to confront a much longer list of pros and cons for each. If you are one of those registered users and have some experience from the "inside" on any of these sites, we would be grateful if you would add to this discussion.