Top 12 Apps for Students Applying to College

Quick! Open your phone right now, and check to see how many applications you have on it. If you’re like the average person, you probably have easily two dozen or more mobile apps on your phone. Try browsing through the best apps for college applicants right now.

Many of these are for travel, business, leisure, and entertainment-related reasons. But how many applications do you have dedicated to helping you get into the college of your dreams? Again, if you’re like the average person, probably not a lot! Unfortunately, not many students are aware of the best apps for college applicants.

The vast majority of your college preparation time will take place on the computer. You’ll need to request transcripts from your high school, research different universities, fill out the common app application, and much more.

Just like all mobile apps give you convenience and accessibility while you’re on the move, education-related apps do the same. No matter what you can imagine, there is most likely an app for that! When applying for college, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and unorganized.

You have a million different things to worry about when applying to the universities of your choice. Having the right applications can help streamline this process, increase your organization, reduce your chances of making a mistake, and even improve the enjoyment of the experience overall.

It’s important to note that college preparation is much more than simply choosing which college you want to go to. Preparing for the admissions process involves earning excellent grades, choosing the right classes, nailing your college essays, performing excellently on standardized tests, and narrowing down your chosen field of study.

Here, we will take a look at some of the best apps for college applicants. Anything you can use to simplify and improve this process can incrementally increase your chances of nailing your application which will in total have a massive impact on your chances of getting into the University of your choice.

YouVisit

One of the most critical parts of preparing for college is visiting the universities that you’re considering applying to. Although online research can provide you with a lot of information about colleges, there is simply no replacement for visiting them in person. Until now! YouVisit allows students to view some of the country’s top colleges such as Harvard and Yale from the comfort of their mobile devices.

No matter where you are, as long as you have a reliable Internet connection, you’ll be able to connect with a university without having to spend time and money to visit. Many colleges offer virtual tours through this application in addition to maps, photos, videos, and much more.

If you want to take things a step further in terms of augmented reality, you can even use a virtual headset for some of the tours.  This app is a must-have for students who don’t have the time to reach all campuses that they’d like to visit.

Scholarship.com

Don’t be fooled by the name, this is an application in addition to a website. As the name suggests, it’s designed to help students find a wide variety of applications to help pay for their college tuition. When figuring out where you want to attend, it’s imperative to think about how you’ll cover the costs. The Scholarship.com app is one of the best ways to discover potential tuition assistance based on your unique circumstances.

The app makes it easy to upload your information such as test scores, GPA, fields of interest, and much more. These insights help the app better determine which scholarships are most advantageous to you. The app is always updated with new scholarships as they come out, making it the perfect companion for students seeking tuition assistance.

InClass

When applying for college, organization is one of the toughest hurdles to get over. You have to keep track of documents, essays, worksheets, transcripts, dues, and much much more. If only there was an app specially designed to help you stay more organized and efficient. But there is! If you have a Gmail email address, you’re most likely at least a little familiar with Google Drive.

But maybe you haven’t been using this application to its fullest potential. First of all, the app allows applicants to access all of their files via their mobile device instead of having to lug them around their laptops. This is an ideal place to store spreadsheets, PDF files, word documents, photos, and more. You can create new folders whenever you need them.

Coursera

At AdmissionSight, we’re always encouraging high schoolers to explore various subjects to help narrow down their field of study in college. Although it’s not essential to know exactly what major you want to pursue in college, even having a rough idea of what direction you want to go in can help narrow down the colleges to which you should apply.

An effective way to whittle down your areas of interest is simply to engage with the subject material. Since your high school most likely doesn’t offer courses as specific as those you’ll find in college, you might have to turn to other resources which lead us to our next mobile application. Coursera is an app that allows students to take a wide variety of courses from mobile devices!

In this application, you’ll find a wide variety of learning materials including course outlines, video lectures, and much more. Although the idea of taking extra courses while preparing for college might seem like a waste of time, even spending just a few minutes every day exploring new subjects can help undecided students quickly determine what area of study they like to pursue.

C’reer App

Nope! That’s not a misspelling. The C’reer app is an easy-to-use and functionally designed app specifically designed to help high school students determine which colleges to apply to. You see, one of the most difficult and most important decisions to make when applying for college is determining which institutions you’ll put forth the time, effort, and investment to apply to.

This mobile app takes you through a quick 5 to 7-minute personality test designed to assess which universities are a good match for you. After taking the exam, the app will provide you with a list of colleges and universities that have the areas of study you’d like to pursue. The app even goes a step further by helping students connect with admissions officers from each school. This is an excellent application to have in your arsenal of college admission apps.

Scholly

As we’ve discussed before, scholarships are one of the most integral parts of applying for college. It’s easy to get caught up in the official application process and forget about the resources that will help you achieve your ultimate goal: graduating from college. It’s no secret that college tuition has continued to rise for both private and public institutions.

Even though we’ve already discussed one app that can help connect students to scholarships, it’s always a good idea to cast a wide net. The Scholly App is another helpful scholarship-search application that was actually featured on Shark Tank! It will simply ask you a series of questions before providing you with a viable list of potential scholarships. It’s quick, easy, and well-designed.

Prep4SAT/Prep4ACT

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has temporarily halted the use of SAT exams for many colleges, it’s still an integral component of the college admissions process overall. In fact, it’s been accepted by most colleges and universities for several decades. As a high school student, you know just how often parents, teachers, and counselors drive home the importance of these standardized tests.

You’re told they play a critical role in determining whether or not you get accepted into the school of your choice. And that’s exactly right! While working with a professional is the best way to prepare for the SAT and ACT, there are also some handy apps you can use in your free time to practice.

Prep4SAT and Prep4ACT are uniquely designed to help students better understand the material that will show up on the exams in addition to increasing their comfort level with the type of questions being asked. It makes studying regularly much easier for busy high schoolers. It even contains some insightful analytics so you can track your progress over time.

Naviance

Some high schools have their students use a program called Naviance to assist in the college admissions process. It’s a useful tool that comes with a wide variety of functionalities aimed at helping high schoolers stay organized and efficient during their college admissions process. Of course, you don’t always have your laptop at the ready.

That’s why, if your high school is using this application, we highly recommend students download the mobile version. It’s significantly easier to navigate than the web-based version and offers you quick and reliable access to your profile when it’s needed. If your high school is not using Naviance, it’s still a helpful tool that’s worth checking out. We wouldn’t recommend it above some of the other applications on this list, but it’s certainly worth a look.

Common Application App

If you’ve been preparing to apply for college for any length of time, you’ve probably heard of the Common Application. For those of you who have already started the application process, you have most likely even filled it out. Just in case you don’t fall into either category, allow us to explain.

The Common Application is a standardized college application accepted by hundreds of colleges across the US. It doesn’t cover everything you need when applying to schools but it covers the basics such as your personal information, academic data, and more. Although the main format of the Common Application is web-based, there is an accompanying app.

Downloading this on your phone can make it easier to keep track of your progress while supplying you with a list of things you still need to collect to complete the process. Through the mobile app, you can track deadlines, submissions status, add recommenders, and even curate your own list of reminders.

Schoold College Search

Another handy college app is simply entitled Schoold College Search. As the name suggests, it provides a nifty search function for students allowing them to research various universities to find majors, financial aid, scholarships, and much more. Although you’ll get more results through Google, it also requires more effort on your part to sift through to find legitimate sources.

With Schoold College Search, the credible sources are already filtered for you. It’s a great tool to use whenever you have some spare time either when on public transportation or waiting around. Perhaps the most effective feature of the app is the counseling advice part. If you have a question about the college admissions process, you can relay it to the mobile app. It’s no replacement for the real thing, but it’s certainly one of the best apps for college applicants.

Institutional Apps

Once you’ve narrowed down your list of the schools you want to apply to, it’s worthwhile to download their respective apps. Yes, you heard that right! All of your favorite schools have their own apps. We can’t promise they’re the most entertaining or even the easiest to use. However, they are one of the best ways to stay connected with the universities to which you’re applying.

Although the exact functionality varies between each institution, most mobile apps allow you to access updated college-related news, contact support lines, learn about admission requirements, see what’s going on at the university each day of the year, and much more. Following your top-rated schools will help you stay abreast of any important changes while keeping them top-of-mind.

Mendeley App

When applying for college, you’ll acquire more PDFs than you ever thought possible. From applications and high school transcripts to letters of recommendation and everything in between, you’ll be tasked with managing, organizing, and maintaining countless documents. Although your computer is one of the safest places to back all of these documents up, it’s not the most accessible or convenient.

That’s where your phone has a major advantage. And thanks to the Mendeley app, you can easily sync your PDFs across various devices making it easier to maintain oversight and control. This handy app also makes it possible to highlight and annotate PDFs to make notes or references.

All of these edits will reflect across the devices with which you’re syncing. The first two gigabytes of data you use are completely free which is more than enough for most students, even if you’re applying to a lot of colleges. Of course, you can pay to upgrade capacity, but it’s certainly not necessary.

Increase your chances of getting into the college of your choice

These mobile applications are an excellent way to support your college admissions process by improving your organization, increasing your knowledge, and streamlining the application process overall.

Although the best apps for college applicants are handy, they’re not the most important part of your overall admissions strategy. That spot is reserved for a college admissions expert. What’s that? Well, these professionals specialize in helping students just like you greatly improve their chances of getting into the schools of their choice.

AdmissionSight – that’s us! – is a leading provider of college admissions solutions that are all designed to put you in the best position possible when applying to college.

Whether you need a hand planning your high school classes or extracurriculars, choosing the best summer programs, acing your standardized tests, nailing your college essays, perfecting your college admissions interview, or anything else related to the college admissions process, we can help!

Our services are custom-tailored to meet your needs by ensuring your essay gets recognized by admissions officers at your chosen university.

Feel free to contact AdmissionSight to learn more about what we have to offer.