College Planning Spreadsheet

College planning is a stressful and lengthy process. A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a friend and client mom who told me that even though she had been through the college planning, search and application process 3 other times with her older children, she was still stressed and feeling lost. She was unsure where her son was in the process for each college and felt overwhelmed trying to keep track of each school’s application process. So, I had my ah-ha moment. I’m sharing one of my favorite college planning resources below. It’s just a simple google sheet to help you and your student keep track of everything you need to remember during application season.

Let me preface by saying I know- it may seem a little overwhelming to look at at first glance. So, before I share the sheet with you and have you leave my site running, never to return, let’s watch a short video on how to use this that will be coupled with my simple suggestions to make it easy and much more manageable.

In case you forgot, these are my tips:

1. The Tabs:

   1. College List should be used to make your initial college list- this can be as long or as short as you’d like, as long as you have at least one safety school on it (if you need some help figuring out what your safety, target and reach schools are, please reach out for an appointment).

   2. Scholarship List is used to track scholarships you’ve found and have either applied to or want to remember to apply to once the application opens

   3. College App List is specifically for the colleges you are applying to. You’ll notice that there are 10 slots- I expect that my clients will pair their list down to 10 colleges to apply to. I know this may sound harsh, but you will need to narrow your list down eventually and the more you apply to, the harder it will be later. Also, simply blanket applying because your search criteria is too broad means you are taking seats from other students if accepted to a school you are not really considering

2. Your initial college list is a snapshot of every school you are currently considering. If you can’t remember how large a school is, you can simply look and compare your list. This allows you to narrow down your list once you begin visiting and eliminating certain characteristics.

3. I recommend using the Scholarship List early and often! You can often begin searching for and potentially applying for scholarships as early as your sophomore year in high school (yes, some scholarships are open to students that early). Remember- many private scholarship applications are due in December and January of your senior year.

4. There are username and password columns in the College App List so that you can remember what username you used and your password. Please don’t share these with others.

Now that we’ve gotten the basics down, feel free to use the College & Scholarship Tracking Spreadsheet through google sheets.