[Update: Admish is now in public beta.] Created by several undergrad students aiming to help out prospective college students, Admish is a yet-to-be-launched community for "college admissions that connects parents, students, guidance counselors and admissions officers." By filling out a profile including information ranging from GPA and SAT score to household income, Admish helps students find a school geared towards their particular needs and interests.
However, in the time that I spent tinkering around on Admish, I can tell it is built to do much more than just find colleges. There's a strong sense of community with the ability for users, particularly students, guidance counselors and admissions officers, to message each other in addition to admishionary, a section of the site devoted to guiding students through a variety of articles.
Thoughts
It would have been great to use a site like this when I was going through the rigors of the college admissions process. I applied to 12 universities from ones in Texas to New York and ended up at Georgia Tech. When people ask me why I chose Georgia Tech my first response is usually "I wanted to get out of Texas and away from home" but it's more along the lines of Georgia Tech's world-wide recognition and ranking (#7 public national university for 2008), which in my translation means my degree will mean something. Although I tend to agree with what the other famous Paul believes; that it doesn't matter what college you attend.
Admish has the potential to change the way prospective students search for colleges - long gone are the days of scouring through those phone book-sized directories listing stats about universities in hopes of finding one that fits your needs. As for feedback to the Admish team, it took me a while to figure out how to use the whole site. For example, after making a thorough profile how would users go about filtering their college search results by the information in their profile? Or is the private profile information primarily for the reference of guidance counselors and admissions officers?
The site design seems very busy and could reap the benefits of toning down a bit: less drop shadow, more content organization. Also, the tooltips and animated menus get a little annoying. I think it would be great to create a sort of "pulse" page highlighting activity on Admish or a "for me" page displaying suggested colleges, local and out of state, based on profile information as well as listing users with similar interests.
Admish plans on launching in late September and is finalizing a partnership with Princeton Review and ETS, so definitely keep an eye out. What was your college application process like?