MBD College Consulting - Marla Bark Dembitz | Deerfield IL

Contact Independent College Consultant Marla Bark Dembitz to help your student showcase their strength. College admission process & selection counseling.

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Resources

Making sense of college admissions.

Sometimes you may feel as if there’s too much college related information to sort through. Or maybe there’s not enough, and you can’t find answers to your questions. To lessen your workload, we sorted through countless printed and online resources and chose some of our favorites to share with you.

Books

  • Admission Matters: What Students and Parents Need to Know about Getting Into College, Sally Springer
  • Colleges That Change Lives: 40 schools that will change the way you think about colleges, Loren Pope
  • The College Finder, Steven Antonoff, PhD
  • College Match, Steven Antonoff, PhD
  • The College Solution: A Guide for Everyone Looking for the Right College at the Right Price, Lynn 0’Shaughnessy
  • Cool Colleges, Donald Asher
  • Fiske Guide to Colleges, Edward Fiske
  • The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of A Premier College, Jacques Steinberg
  • The Real ACT Prep Guide, the official guide published by the maker of the test
  • The Official SAT Study Guide, published by The College Board  
     

Researching Colleges

College Navigator

http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/

Government website that allows students to search for colleges and universities using a wide range of search criteria including location, size, tuition, athletics and more. Students can export results into a spreadsheet for further analysis.

National Center for Education Statistics

www.nces.ed.gov

Education-related data that is collected and analyzed by the federal government.

CollegeData

http://www.collegedata.com

College search database, admissions information, financial aid information and more.

Niche

https://colleges.niche.com

Offers over 450,000 student reviews of more than 7,000 schools.

College Results Online

www.collegeresults.org

Provides information about college graduation rates for nearly any four-year college or university in the country.

College Board

www.collegeboard.org

Filter helps students narrow their search from a database of more than 3,800 colleges and universities. Can also register for the SAT and SAT subject tests.

Princeton Review

www.princetonreview.com

Information about test preps, finding colleges and grad schools and academic tutoring.

Chegg

www.chegg.com

Information about scholarships and an online college search.

Big Future, by the College Board

www.bigfuture.collegeboard.org

Information on finding colleges, exploring careers and paying for college.

Unigo™

www.unigo.com

College students provide an insider’s view of their school using written reviews and videos.

Education Corner®

http://www.educationcorner.com/colleges-universities.html

College search and statistics for over 7,000 U.S. colleges and universities based on data provided by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

College Confidential

www.collegeconfidential.com

Hundreds of pages of articles about choosing a college, getting into the college you want, how to pay for it, discussion groups, reviews and more.

Cappex

www.cappex.com

Search and compare colleges, see reviews and learn more about scholarships.

Choosing a Major

College Majors 101

www.collegemajors101.com

Descriptions of majors, colleges that offer them, videos, profiles and links to future employers.

MyMajors

www.mymajors.com  

A free quiz to help you assess your interests in careers and the colleges that offer those majors.

College Applications

The Common Application

https://www.commonapp.org

One application to submit to nearly 500 colleges or universities.

Universal College Application

https://www.universalcollegeapp.com/

One college application to submit to more than 40 schools.

Campus Tours

Campus Tours

www.campustours.com

Interactive virtual college tours and campus maps.

YOUniversityTV

www.youniversitytv.com

Video tours of colleges and universities.

Standardized Testing

The College Board

www.collegeboard.com

Register for the SAT and SAT subject tests.

The ACT

www.actstudent.org

Register for the ACT.

FairTest

www.fairtest.org

A list of colleges and universities that do not use SAT or ACT scores for admitting substantial numbers of students into bachelor degree programs.

Khan Academy

https://www.khanacademy.org

Offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empowers learners to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom.

Financial Aid/Scholarships

FinAid®

www.finaid.org

Offers comprehensive information on the financial aid process.

Free Application for Federal Student Aid

www.fafsa.ed.gov

Apply for financial aid, review reports and get information about your deadlines.

Federal Student Aid

https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/

General information about preparing for college, types of available aid, qualifying and applying for aid, and managing loans.

Fastweb

www.fastweb.com

Scholarship search.

Cappex

www.cappex.com

Makes it easy to find merit-based scholarships offered by colleges.

CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE®

https://student.collegeboard.org/css-financial-aid-profile

Use PROFILE to apply for nonfederal financial aid from almost 400 colleges and scholarship programs.

Essay Writing Books

  • The Art of the College Essay, Gabrielle Clancy
  • Write Out Loud, Carol Barash, PhD. 

Learning Disabilities

LD Online

www.ldonline.org

The educators’ guide to learning disabilities and ADHD.

CollegeWebLD®

https://www.collegewebld.com

A step-by-step process to give you the information needed to discover the best match for the student.

College Supports for Learning Differences

https://collegesupports.com

Provides up-to-date information needed to find the “best fit” for students, regardless of their learning differences.

Athletic Resources

National Collegiate Athletic Association

www.ncaa.org

Official website that provides high school student athletes with all of the information they need to play college athletics at an NCAA school.

National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics

www.naia.org

Provides high school student athletes with all of the information they need to play college athletics at an NAIA school.

Religious Life

Hillel International

www.hillel.org

Provides information about Jewish life on more than 550 colleges and universities in North America and around the world.

National Catholic College Admission Association

www.catholiccollegesonline.org

Provides information on more than 140 Catholic colleges and universities.

Visual and Performing Arts

Bridge to Music

http://www.bridgetomusic.com/advSearchResults.php

A directory that features over 3,000 music schools, classes, workshops, music festivals and private teacher listings.

Art Schools

www.artschools.com

An art school and program directory searchable by discipline, location or type of school.

Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design

www.aicad.org

A consortium of 40 leading art schools in the U.S. and Canada.

National Association of Schools of Theater

www.nast.arts-accredit.org

NAST is an organization of schools, conservatories, colleges and universities. It has approximately 135 accredited institutional members.

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Marla made the application process completely manageable. Her wealth of knowledge on each college allowed me to write the best possible essays for every school. With her immaculate attention to detail and creativity, I was admitted to every school I applied to!

Glenbrook North High School student
Tulane University, Class of 2018

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