Rich Friedman
BARRON'S PROFILES OF AMERICAN COLLEGES, 19th ed., Laser Resources, Inc., 20620 South Leapwood, Suite F, Carson, CA 90746, (310) 324-4444, $49.95
LOVEJOY'S COLLEGE COUNSELOR, InterMedia Interactive Software, Inc., 3624 Market St., Suite 302, Philadelphia, PA 19104, (215) 387-0448, professional version, $199; student version, $59
You quickly learn that there are an awful lot of schools out there when you start to search for that ``perfect match'' for your child. Two hefty resource tomes, Barron's Profiles of American Colleges and Lovejoy's College Counselor, have been transported, with varying degrees of success, to CD-ROM.
Of the two, Lovejoy's is by far the easiest to use because of its slicker user interface. Above and beyond the standard facts about median SAT scores and de
gree offerings, Lovejoy's includes campus photos and, in some cases, short but mostly inane talking-head videos. (Lovejoy's professional version includes additional information on two-year schools--community, vocational, technical, trade, and business--and lets a high school guidance counselor store up to 1000 student profiles.)
The Lovejoy's disc lets you search for schools in numerous ways: alphabetically, geographically, by admission competitiveness, by cost, by areas of study, and even by sports (228 colleges and universities across the U.S. offer lacrosse, a fact of utmost importance to my college-bound eldest son).
However, both CD-ROMs only scratch the surface in providing helpful information in what most students and parents would agree is a difficult, frustrating, subjective, and emotional process. They would be greatly improved by opinionated material from sources such as U.S. News & World Report's annual college guide. I'd like to quickly search for those colleges that experts believ
e give the best value for the dollar, have the best dorm food, have the lowest reported incidence of rape or alcohol abuse, or have the lowest rates of locking students out of popular courses. Both publishers say they are updating their CD-ROMs by the end of the year.
That Perfect Match
