Edswell is a free student resource that is designed to improve and support the college application process. Edswell can help students organize their search process, find universities that meet their criteria, breakdown the essay writing process, and so much more. It’s an absolutely excellent resource that I think can also help students who may not typically have counseling or advising services available to them.
Plus, Edswell is incredibly user friendly and makes the college application process less overwhelming and stressful. Let’s take a look!
Plus, Edswell is incredibly user friendly and makes the college application process less overwhelming and stressful. Let’s take a look!
To begin, if you'd like to see an introductory video from the team, you can check out "Edswell - The Choice" over on Vimeo.
In short, Edswell is meant to guide students through every aspect of the college application process. As mentioned above, Edswell is (and always will be) completely free for students.
Edswell does offer a paid plan for counselors and advisors, which can be beneficial if you’re in a role overseeing students during their application process. For counselors, it’s $9 a month for you and your first two students, and then $2 a month for each additional student. We’ll break down the resources available to counselors at the end, but first, let’s take a look at the student side of Edswell.
Edswell does offer a paid plan for counselors and advisors, which can be beneficial if you’re in a role overseeing students during their application process. For counselors, it’s $9 a month for you and your first two students, and then $2 a month for each additional student. We’ll break down the resources available to counselors at the end, but first, let’s take a look at the student side of Edswell.
Edswell for Students
Edswell is aligned with the College Board application checklist, but also allows students to make completely customizable application plans based on their needs and interests. When students first create an account, they’ll be guided through the steps they can take in order to get started. First step? Finding 4 schools they might be interested in.
Students can use the college search box at the top left to find school’s they might be interested in. Search suggestions will also pop-up as students begin typing a school’s name.
One of the things I love about Edswell is how detailed and informative the search results are. Personally, I find Edswell immensely more useful than going to each school’s individual website, because you can quickly get a complete breakdown of requirements, acceptance rate, typical ACT/SAT scores, and so much more.
Once students have found schools that they are interested, they can begin working on the various requirements and application essays for those schools. On the application plan page, students will see a completely customizable list of actions they should take, which includes a detailed timeline.
This is probably my favorite part of Edswell, as it really simplifies the application process and helps students organize their thoughts and actions. Plus, you can have a global plan, as well as individualized plans for each of the universities you’re applying for.
On the essay writing side, Edswell was born as a college essay management system, and even though the resource has come a long ways since then, essay management/assistance is still a big part of what they offer.
First, Edswell has a series of 48 video lessons and 10 sample essays that can give students guidance on writing a rock-solid application essay. But in addition to that, you can click on any of the schools you’re applying to in order to see a list of all the required and optional essays that are needed by the school.
Students can work on their essays directly within the Edswell system, or paste in work they’ve done elsewhere. The best part though, is that you can send your essay drafts to anyone, they don’t even have to have an Edswell account. This way, students can get feedback from a variety of people, and easily sort through and manage that feedback within Edswell. It’s a great system, and one that I think is especially helpful for students working through this process.
There are some additional features for students, like creating todo lists, having a calendar to manage deadlines (synced with those todo lists), receiving SAT prep from Khan Academy, and comparing test scores to what universities typically accept. These are all wonderful additions to the app as well, and I think they serve to create a resource that includes a wide variety of beneficial supports and scaffolds for high school students.
Edswell for Counselors
The counselor side of Edswell allows you to oversee all of the students you are working with, as well as check in on student deadlines, provide feedback on essays, recommend schools (or groups of schools) to your students, and even chat with them through the chat window.
You’ll be able to access the application plans of any students you are working with in order to track their progress, talk to them about deadlines, and provide any additional support that you think they might need. You can even customize their application plans for them if you want to get really hands-on in the support that you’re providing.
In short, the counselor side of Edswell offers a way to oversee your students through this process and more easily keep track of where individual students are at any given moment. Like the student side, it’s incredibly user friendly, and a great way for counselors to support their students during the application process.
Wrapping Up...
Overall, I think Edswell is an exceptional resource for helping students plan and organize their college application process. Especially for students who may not have access to counseling and advising services, Edswell can be immensely helpful in provide assistance and support. If you’re a counselor looking for a way to assist your students throughout this process, or a student who is considering applying to college, I absolutely recommend checking out Edswell.
The opinions expressed in this review are my own.
I was not compensated for reviewing this application.
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