The first thing I did when visiting the site was to search for a school. The search function is adequate. I typed in the exact name of a school and instead of bringing me to that school’s page it brings you to a list of schools with those words in them. To me that is unnecessary, if you do a specific search you want to go to a specific page. There is a lot of information available to you without registering with the site. Once you locate a school’s page you can see information on the student population, expenses, and academic programs as well as pictures and videos. Unfortunately most of the pictures are logos or Wikipedia graphics so they are very sterile and don’t give you a feel of the campus’ personality.
After you register for your free account you can ask questions in the College Advice section, which is powered by Yahoo Answers. There is also a section where current students can contribute information via Google Friend Connect.

Once you have viewed the information on several schools you can click on the “compare” tool and it will bring up a side by side comparison of 4 schools that you choose. This tool was very helpful to me in weeding out some schools that didn’t meet the demographics I was looking for. The school names didn’t show up in this screen shot but they are from left to right: The University of Tampa, The University of South Florida, The College of the Ozarks and The University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

If you are looking for information on smaller schools and trade schools Campus Explorer is the tool for you. There is information on a lot of schools that are not covered at all on other sites.

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From Unigo-

For years, prospective college students have had to rely solely on costly print guidebooks for
their research. These books offer limited information, are typically written by marketing
professionals, have few photos, no videos, and no interactivity. Launched in September 2008,
the free website Unigo.com is quickly replacing these outmoded resources, with tens of
thousands of interactive reviews of America’s top colleges by the real experts – the students
who attend them.
These reviews were described by The New York Times Magazine as “…so evocative they make
the one-page U.S. News summaries read like junk mail … they are vivid in a way no guidebook
can match,” and The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg called Unigo “…a college information
resource built for the age of YouTube and Facebook.”
Pre-launch, Unigo’s team of 19 editors spent months researching America’s top 250 colleges,
and networking with tens of thousands of students to give them the opportunity to tell their
stories. They made sure to contact a diverse range of students within each university –
students from every class year, major, ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, sexual orientation,
etc.

After more than 30,000 candid and original reviews, videos, photos, documents and more
poured in, Unigo’s editors viewed and organized all of it, working with students on campus to
ensure accuracy and making all of it available at Unigo.com. At many featured colleges, close to
10% of the student body contributed content.

Since Unigo is a new site and currently only has full profiles of the top 250+ colleges and universities, it has a long way to go. I searched for 6 universities that my son is interested in and none of them are profiled on Unigo at this time. To do my research I finally went to my alma mater The University of South Florida.
Unigo has a very nice review of USF with pictures and videos as well as reviews by students. I was impressed that in the sidebar of the page there are quotes from students that are the “Best things about USF” and the “Worst things about USF”. The content is real and regularly added to by students. Unigo also has a forum section where students can talk with prospective students and answer some of their questions before they ever step on campus.

Unigo is free to join and is a worthwhile place for you and your high school junior or senior to start researching and planning for their college career.

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In talking to my friends I have realized that no one is helping them choose the right college for their child. Even those in public schools with “guidence counselors” aren’t getting the support and information they need to make one of the most important and expensive decisions in their lives so far.

I have been doing some research and I have found some interesting online resources. Over the next few months I will be sharing them with you. I have not received anything from these sites though some of them have asked me to talk about them on my blog.  Some of these sites may see each other as a “competitor” but every family has different needs and different questions about preparing for and choosing a college. I am doing this as a service to you, my readers.

I hope you will find this series of articles helpful and please feel free to share them with your friends via Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, StumbleUpon, Propeller, Digg and any other way you like to share great information.

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