US & International College & University Matching

Build your profile

Start by filling in your profile in the panel on the left of the College Advisor. The more detail you provide, the more detailed your plan.

• Report cards, GPA and test scores
• Academic interests and intended major
• Extracurriculars, strengths, and goals
• Home state and family income range
• Specific preferences — size, location, setting, etc.

Build your college plan & school list

Click Build my college plan. SchoolScout analyzes your profile and produces a personalized list of match, reach, and safety schools with a summary explaining why it made the cut.

Select your Schools

Build your list manually, alongside or instead of generating one automatically.

• Find colleges with College Search and click "Add to Profile"
• Use "Add College" in the list of chosen colleges at the bottom
• Click the X to remove a college — you'll have the option to replace it

Refine your list through chat

Access SchoolScout's Chat feature in the panel on the right of the College Advisor, or from the SchoolScout button on the right edge of the screen (bottom corner on a phone). Ask Chat anything college related — the chat is how you actively shape and update your plan.

• "Remove Stanford and replace it with a strong match school in the South"
• "Add two more schools with strong computer science programs"
• "Swap out any schools more than 4 hours from Boston"
• "What's the average net price for the public schools on my list?"

Deep Dive any school

Every school card has a Deep Dive row. Press Run on it for a detailed analysis, then open the row to read it. It covers:

• Current cost of attendance and aid availability
• Campus culture and student sentiment
• Rankings, reputation and program strengths
• Admissions trends, test policy, essays and special requirements

Look up Aid & Scholarships

Press Run on a school card's Aid & Scholarships row to look up:

• Named merit scholarships, their thresholds and amounts
• Need-based aid policy and how much need the school meets
• Priority aid deadlines and FAFSA or CSS Profile requirements

Get engagement strategies

The How to Engage row on each school card shows how to get in touch with that school:

• Admissions email and social accounts
• Virtual tour and campus visit links
• Whether the school tracks demonstrated interest, and which channels count most there

Talk a school over with your family

Every school card has a Comment button. Open it to leave a note about that one school — what appeals, what worries you, what someone should check — and anyone else on the account can reply underneath it.

• The button carries the count, so you can see at a glance which schools have been discussed
• Each comment also appears in the Family tab, so the whole conversation stays in one place
• A comment stays in that conversation even if the school is later removed from your list

Rank your list

Reach, match, and safety describe your odds of getting in — not which schools you actually want. Your list starts grouped by reach, match and safety; after that, the order is yours. Drag a school by the handle in the Rank column of the Recommended Schools Comparison table to move it, top choice first.

• Each school keeps a #1, #2, #3 badge that follows it through the whole plan
• The comparison table and the detailed school sections always share one order
• Click the Fit Tier heading to sort by admission odds — the school sections below regroup under Reach, Match and Safety to match
• Dragging works when the list is sorted by Rank; click the Rank heading to get back to your order and keep rearranging
• On a phone, press and hold a handle before dragging — a quick swipe scrolls the page instead
• No mouse? Tab to a handle, press Space to pick the school up, move it with the arrow keys, Space to drop it, or Escape to cancel
• Schools you add later join the bottom of the list until you move them

Save, share, and export

Once your plan is ready:

• Save — store your plan to come back to it later
• Share — generate a read-only link for parents, counselors, or friends
• PDF — print or save a clean version of your full plan
• Duplicate — copy a saved plan as a starting point for a new one

Browse

The Search page lets you browse thousands of colleges independently of the advisor. Filter by location, size, type, cost, and more. Each college page includes:

• Academic programs and degrees offered
• Admissions stats, costs, and financial aid data
• Recent news and YouTube videos
• Interactive location map — distance from home and nearest airports
• Link to the school's official interactive campus map, where available
• Links to the official College Scorecard