Links and Resources

Scoir
Scoir is a personalized application manager used by St. Andrew's to manage all aspects of the college application process. Students can use it to research colleges, build a college list and track applications.

College Board
The College Board offers a powerful college search, standardized testing information (PSAT, SAT, AP), and links to the CSS Profile form and other financial aid resources.

U-CAN
The University and College Accountability Network (U-CAN) gives students and families concise information about colleges in a format that allows for easy comparisons.

CampusTours
Offers free virtual tours of many colleges and universities.

Colleges That Change Lives
A non-profit focused on promoting a student-centered college search process.

Online college newspapers
Reading a college's newspaper is one of the best ways to get a feel for the campus, issues that are affecting students, and local events.

Common Application
Most (but not all colleges) use the Common Application.

Coalition for College

Gotham Writer's Workshop Writing Tips

PSAT, SAT and AP Tests

ACT Test

Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL)

NCAA Eligibility Center
All students interested in competing in Division I or II athletics in college must register here.

NCAA Member Schools
Use this site to locate college sports programs.

A gap year is a natural break in the educational process after high school for students to explore interests before embarking on their college years. Gap years can include work experiences to earn money toward college or any number of domestic and international travel and volunteer initiatives. An increasing number of colleges recognize the value of taking a year off between high school and college. Many St. Andrew's graduates have spent a gap year traveling, working, doing community service or outward-bound programs.

Below are some resources to gap year programs, books, opportunities, etc.

AFS Intercultural Programs
AFS Community Service Program is for young adults of 18 years or older. Participants volunteer to work at local organizations that address community needs, such as helping street children or developing training programs with human rights workers. Projects vary by hosting country and participants’ interests. AFS offers Community Service programs in more than 20 countries across the globe.

Center for Interim Programs, LLC
Founded in 1980, the Center for Interim Programs is the first and longest-running independent gap-year counseling organization in the United States. Interim has designed creative gap-year opportunities for more than 5,700 people of all ages and built relationships with organizations worldwide. Interim's database encompasses more than 5,600 program opportunities.

Center for International Studies
For more than a decade, CIS has been providing safe, challenging, life-changing, study abroad experiences.

City Year
City Year unites young people of all backgrounds for a year of full-time service, giving them the skills and opportunities to change the world. As tutors, mentors and role models, City Year participants help children stay in school and on track, and transform schools and communities across the United States, as well as through international affiliates in Johannesburg, South Africa and London, England.

Council on International Educational Exchange
Since 1947, CIEE has sent more than 50,000 U.S. youth to locations around the globe. These programs allow U.S high school students and recent high school graduates to study abroad, to live with a native host family, work abroad, and/or volunteer, and to challenge themselves on a new level by becoming fully immersed in a language and a new culture.

Global Citizen Year
Global Citizen Yearis designed to expose young Americans to global issues while developing them into leaders and effective agents of change. We believe that a structured bridge year can build the foundation for a student’s college and post-graduate life. In order to do so, we support our Fellows in an apprenticeship and homestay in Ecuador, Senegal or Brazil over the course of a 9-month program, combining their experience with an intensive training in the United States and a language and culture-specific training in their respective countries.

MASA Israel Journey
Programs in Israel ranging from five months to one year.

NOLS: National Outdoor Leadership School
Founded in 1965 by legendary mountaineer Paul Petzoldt, NOLS--a 501(c)(3) not for profit educational institution--takes people of all ages on remote wilderness expeditions, teaching technical outdoor skills, leadership, and environmental ethics in some of the world’s wildest and most awe-inspiring classrooms. What NOLS teaches cannot be learned in a classroom or on a city street. It takes practice to learn outdoor skills and time to develop leadership. The wilderness provides the ideal setting for this unique experience.

Outward Bound
Outward Bound is a non-profit educational organization and expedition school that serves people of all ages and backgrounds through active learning expeditions that inspire character development, self-discovery and service both in and out of the classroom. Outward Bound delivers programs using unfamiliar settings as a way for participants across the country to experience adventure and challenge in a way that helps students realize they can do more than they thought possible. Customized courses provide curricula developed for struggling teens, groups with specific health, social or educational needs and business and professional organizations. a chartered entity of Outward Bound, offers a whole school reform model to more than 150 elementary and secondary schools throughout the country.

Projects Abroad
Projects Abroad offers a wide range of volunteer and internship opportunities abroad. Whether your interests lie in conservation, journalism, healthcare, law or archaeology you will receive a unique perspective into the culture of the country in which you are working.

SeaMester
SeaMester offers unique educational journeys at sea. For over 30 years, SeaMester and its affiliated programs have offered water-based academic and adventure training programs for students around the world. SeaMester is the only sailing based educational program that circumnavigates the globe. One semester, students from S/Y Ocean Star may be climbing the Pitons of St. Lucia while those from S/Y Argo study species diversity on the Islands of the Galapagos. The next semester they could be diving the coral reefs of Dominica while others visit an aboriginal community in Australia's Tiwi islands.

Taking Off
Taking Off is a highly personalized service working with anyone who takes time before or during college or later in life. Taking Off works closely with each person to develop a plan to insure that “stopping out” does not become “dropping out." Taking Off helps clients explore and identify interests, evaluate priorities and secure experiences tailored to their specific needs.

Walking Tree Travel
The mission of Walking Tree Travel is to inspire high school students to become global citizens by taking an active interest in the world around them. Walking Tree specializes in cultural and linguistic immersion programs to Costa Rica, Senegal, China, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Mexico.

Where There Be Dragons
Where There Be Dragons programs are authentic, rugged learning adventures that expose the beautiful and complex realities of the countries in which students travel. Featuring extended itineraries, Dragons programs encourage deep immersion into strikingly different physical and cultural landscapes, combining the best in experiential education, travel, service learning, and physically and intellectually challenging experiences.

Woolman Semester
The Woolman Semester is a Quaker-founded semester program for students in their junior, senior or gap year of high school interested in studying social justice and environmental sustainability. The mission of the Woolman Semester is to empower students to effect change in the world on their terms.

World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF)
WWOOF started in the UK in 1971 and is now a worldwide network helping people share more sustainable ways of living. In return for volunteer help, WWOOF hosts offer food, accommodation and opportunities to learn about organic lifestyles.

Yale University Gap Year Resources
Great list of resources, including books, articles, and programs, compiled by Yale for students considering a gap year.