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College
Planning Gets Easier with GoHigher
November
5, 2004
Lori Powers
Kentucky
Higher Education Assistance Authority
Kentucky
students now have a free online tool they can use to make college
planning easier—GoHigherKY.org,
the state’s new one- stop
college planning Web portal.
Sophomore
Katie Wright says GoHigherKY.org is “cool.” Wright,
16, attends Frankfort High School in Frankfort, Kentucky, and
is getting a jump on her college planning now. “Go
Higher gives you a place to enter your classes to see if you match
graduation requirements,” Wright said. “You can plan
your classes to make sure you have everything you need to graduate.”
At
GoHigherKY.org, students can select a school from among 48 Kentucky
colleges and universities, take virtual campus tours and set up
free accounts that lets them apply to colleges online. A transcript
exchange lets students send their high school transcripts electronically
with their online applications.
Wright
said she found it easy to log on and begin researching colleges.
“I’ve started looking at colleges now. Like my mom said,
‘You don’t want to wait until you are a senior and be
overwhelmed,’” she said. The
ability to search Kentucky colleges is key, Wright said, “because
that’s where you can use your KEES money.” KEES, the
Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship, is the program funded
by lottery proceeds that rewards high school students for good
grades with money for college.
Students
can run free scholarship searches to find financial aid programs
that match their interests, abilities and backgrounds. They can
also transfer their information to the Free Application for Federal
Student Aid (FAFSA), used to apply for state and federal financial
aid programs.
Typing
in information to search for scholarship information on GoHigherKY.org
was quick for sophomore Aleena White, 16, who also attends Frankfort
High School. White was able to match 131 scholarships minutes
after entering her information. She will definitely go back and
search the site more carefully so she can research costs and try
to find scholarships. Like Wright, White said she wants to get
an early start to her college plan. “I’ve seen seniors
who get so hectic – senior year is supposed to be fun, and
they are all stressed out with deadlines. I don’t want that
to come back on me,” White said. “It’s better to
start ahead and have some idea on what you want to do and where
you want to go.”
GoHigherKY.org
features a section on choosing a career as well as a planner timeline
to help students begin preparing for college as early as the eighth
grade. White said that section has “helpful advice and resources,”
especially if you are undecided about what major to pursue in
college. All
in all, both teens agree they will use the Go Higher site again.
Since all Kentucky colleges are listed, students don’t have
to search around at different colleges, and they can get applications
and send transcripts all in one place. Instead of searching multiple
college sites, with GoHigherKY.org, “you can get it all in
one place,” Wright said.
There
is also a Counselor Center that helps counselors track their students’
progress through the college admissions and career exploration.
Another section of GoHigherKY.org focuses on distance education,
like Kentucky Virtual University and Kentucky Virtual Adult Education.
The
site is a collaborative effort of Kentucky colleges, state agencies
and other organizations and offers free college planning and financial
aid information for students in grades 8–12.
For
more information, visit http://www.GoHigherKY.org.
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