Parents' Guide to Peterson's College Guide

Peterson's College Guide Poster Image

Common Sense Media Review

Dana Anderson By Dana Anderson , based on child development research. How do we rate?

age 15+

Find basic college stats on this simple, searchable tool.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 15+?

Any Positive Content?

Parent and Kid Reviews

What's It About?

To use PETERSON'S COLLEGE GUIDE, sign up by entering your name, phone number, email address, and a password. Then choose whether you will allow any schools to contact you or only schools you save. Choose undergraduate or graduate schools, and then answer some personal, demographic, and school-related questions. Add five dream schools to your search list. Search for other specific schools; tap the heart to save favorites. Read each school's stats: setting, size, tuition (in- and out-of-state), acceptance rate, "admission difficulty," application deadlines, and majors and degrees offered. A contact number and email address is listed at the bottom of each school's page.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say : Not yet rated
Kids say : Not yet rated

If you're looking for a searchable database of colleges and universities that includes basic information about each institution, this app works. However, Peterson's College Guide is a very simple app; there's no way to compare schools' stats side-by-side, or list choices by tuition costs or some other factor important to a particular student's search. What it may do is get your student a lot of marketing information. Users may want to select "only allow schools I save to contact me" to limit marketing.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about how to make a wise decision when choosing a college or university. What stats on Peterson's College Guide are important for your student to consider? What are some other features not included on this app that your student should look for when researching prospective schools?

  • Talk to your student about limiting how much marketing they get from schools by choosing which schools can contact them.

  • This app requires students to enter a lot of personal and demographic data. Read Common Sense Media's "Who is collecting my kid's data and what are they doing with it?" for more information on the topic of personal data collection and marketing.

App Details

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by

Peterson's College Guide Poster Image

You May Also Like...

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

See how we rate