This site is a great site for students staying in the state of Texas for college. This is probably the most useful site I have found to help families prepare for college. Many of the topics on the site deal with Texas specific programs, so if your student is looking out of state it will not be useful. Included on this site are the following:
- The Apply Texas Application:the application students may fill out online for admission to any of the state universities in Texas.
- Free SAT Prep
- The College Access Loan:currently one of the best loans to help cover your out of pocket expenses not funded through the Need-Based aid programs. Loan information and the online application are on this site.
This is the site to register your student for the SAT exam and to find out the results of the SAT exam. There are some online prep tools that may help your student prepare for the exam along with sections that walk through planning for college, researching colleges, applying to colleges, and ultimately paying for college. Lastly, this is the site to register for and submit the CSS/Profile form (the additional aid form some private colleges require to process your aid). One of the most useful sites I have found. I also recommend signing your student up for the "Question of the Day".
FAFSA
This is the U.S. Department of Education's site. This is the site used to submit the FAFSA form, apply for FSA ID's, make corrections or add a college to any processed FAFSA forms, retrieve Student Aid Reports, etc.... This site is an excellent resource that can answer many of the aid questions you may have.
Fastweb
The best site I have found to research the independent scholarships. This is only a little over 3% of the scholarship money awarded annually, so don't spend too much time on this site. Having said that, it couldn't hurt to register at the site to apply for any scholarships that fit your student's situation.
This is a very good site to help with researching the different colleges, finding a student's best fit college, admissions requirements, and much, much more.