Finding a college you can:

a) get into

b) see yourself at

and

c) afford

isn’t easy. Seniors spend all year weighing their options.

But how do you determine your options when college brochures and websites provide little, if any help, other than a few picturesque shots of the campus and smiling co-eds? Most of us need to know a little bit more before deciding what school to give our money, and the next four to eight years of our lives to.

Here’s where College Prowler comes in. A website founded in 2002 by one of Inc. Magazine’s “30 under 30: America’s Coolest Young Entrepreneurs,” Carnegie Mellon grad Luke Skurman.

Skurman’s website provides prospective students with 430, 998 reviews (and counting) by students, for over 7, 787 colleges. The website not only provides this information, but also personalizes it. By creating a student profile with: grade level, SAT/ACT scores and a list of classes and extracurriculars College Prowler can match you up with schools you might be interested in, and can even help you get in contact with them. College Prowler also gives out more than $50,000 in scholarships a year and helps you see the student profiles to pair students with scholarships they qualify for.

For most students though, the key aspect of the website is it’s report cards and school bios. The report card grades each school on every aspect of campus life.

“That’s really why I like College Prowler, because it gives you the inside scoop on the social aspect of each college, which college websites don’t. It rates nightlife, guys, girls, the food, housing and other stuff that’s just as important as the academics,” said  Mackie Burr, CHS alum and Colgate University freshman.

Each school bio provides the school’s location, in-state and out-of-state tuition, cost of room and board, application deadline, acceptance rate, level of difficulty for admission and average SAT and ACT scores.It also includes important aspects such as student reviews, lists of the best and worst of the campus, and most popular majors.

“It was a really useful tool in helping me decide where to apply in the beginning of my college application process,” said Camille Posard, CHS alum and UCLA freshman.

And for those of you who can never figure out why, when searching a college website, you can’t find any information on admissions or financial aid, it’s because they’re separate websites; something college’s don’t make very clear. But, College Prowler does, listing the various websites for every college.

That’s probably because, as their motto says, College Prowler is “By students. For students.”