Counselor-O-Matic is a free program created by The Princeton Review to help students choose where to apply to college.

Students input their GPA, SAT or ACT scores, extracurricular activities, the locations in which they’d most like to attend college and information about their personality and background. Then, the site evaluates these statistics and traits to provide the students with “reach,” “match” and “safety” schools.

Similar online programs have been created in the past, but few seem to evaluate students as comprehensively as Counselor-O-Matic.

To determine the accuracy and efficiency of the site, we had four seniors test it out. To try it for yourself, visit The Princeton Review Web site at http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/advsearch/match.asp.

Student: Jacob Friedman

Profile: Friedman describes himself as outgoing and humorous. During his free time, he reads books and magazines on economics and business, golfs, skis and plays videogames.

Favorite Schools:

- Reach: University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania

- Match: Tufts, Carnegie Mellon

- Safety: Occidental

Some of Counselor-O-Matic's Recommendations:

- Reach: Claremont McKenna, Tufts, University of Pennsylvania

- Match: Occidental, Babson, Villanova

- Safety: University of Redlands, UC Riverside, Dickinson, Bentley

Opinion of the Site: “The site was pretty far off. A lot of what I considered matches were reaches, according to the site. But I know that my GPA and SAT scores are higher than the ranges of many of those schools.” (Friedman will attend the University of Chicago, his early action school.)

Student: Yee Lo

Profile: Lo enjoys being involved in her Mormon religion, learning about her Hmong culture, being outdoors, playing volleyball and biking. She hopes to major in the sciences.

Favorite Schools:

- Reach: Stanford, UC Berkeley

- Match: Occidental College, UC San Diego

- Safety: University of the Pacific, SacState

Some of Counselor-O-Matic's Recommendations:

- Reach: UC Berkeley, Stanford, Pomona

- Match: Occidental, UCLA, UC Irvine, Harvey Mudd

- Safety: UC San Diego, Scripps, Pitzer

Opinion of the Site: “I’m applying to a lot of the schools that came up, but it gave a lot of small schools and I’m mainly looking at bigger ones. The only schools I definitely wouldn’t consider going to are Harvey Mudd and Pitzer.”



Student: Peter Mancina

Profile: Mancina’s interests include the history of warfare, and marine biology. He also plays bass for a punk rock band. He wants to major in music composition, but most likely will not attend a conservatory school.

Favorite Schools:

- Reach: Stanford, UCLA School of Music

- Match: Lawrence Conservatory, Occidental

- Safety: Puget Sound, UC Santa Cruz, SacState

Some of Counselor-O-Matic's Recommendations:

- Reach: Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, UCLA

- Match: Rice, Oberlin, Bard

- Safety: Butler, Lawrence, Westmont College, Loyola University, New Orleans

Opinion of the Site: “I think the site was pretty accurate. It gives you a good idea of what your ranges are. Originally, when I was going to apply to conservatory schools, it didn’t really work; but it works pretty well for normal schools. But I said I wanted small-medium size schools and it gave me Florida State!”

Student: Saba Rahimian

Profile: Rahimian characterizes herself as artistic, outgoing and athletic. “I like getting to know lots of people,” she said. She’s involved in her Persian culture and plans to be a pre-med.

Favorite Schools:

- Reach: UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego

- Match: UC Davis, UC Irvine

- Safety: UC Riverside, American River College

Some of Counselor-O-Matic's Recommendations:

- Reach: UCLA, UC Berkeley

- Match: Harvey Mudd, UC San Diego, USC

- Safety: University of Redlands, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

Opinion of the Site: “The site didn’t really work for me because a lot of the schools they gave me are too small. But I guess, since I said that I only wanted California schools, they just gave me like all the schools in the state.”