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Join our community of successful students!

When you sign up for Cappex and connect to your college prep program or charter school, you unlock the best there is for free college and scholarship search, with a tailored experience and top tier resources.

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Once you've created your Cappex account, here's how to maximize your college or scholarship search:

Tabs on the left-hand side guide you through the platform. ‘Home’ will always take you back to the dashboard. The gear emoticon in the top left of your screen will take you to your account settings. This is where you can change your email and password.

Check out more advice to the right of this video before exploring the other explainer videos:

The dashboard

This will show you if you have any outstanding items on your profile under next steps. i.e., adding your testing scores, indicating preferences, etc. There's also a quick link to see your college list. Click ‘My Student Profile’ to finish your profile and add your personal info or high school academics. Make sure to save what you fill out!

Today’s Matches

Suggested colleges and universities that would best fit you. These can shuffle the more you fill out your profile. ‘My College List’ tab takes you to your college list. When you add additional academic information, the list will be automatically sorted by Likely, Target, and Reach.

‘My Preferences’

This tab takes you to a section where you can tell Cappex what YOU are looking for in a college. You can add preferences for institutions closer to home, with a certain campus size, and much more.

‘Colleges’

This tab takes you to our database of undergraduate institutions. Filters for search are along the top. (The ‘Graduate Schools’ tab takes you to our database of graduate institutions.)

‘Find Scholarships’

Click this tab to see our database of scholarships and opportunities for additional college funding. Filters for search are along the top. At the very top left, you will see a gift box with featured offers for you. These offers can tell you about opportunities from Cappex, like the My Biggest Fan scholarship.

Application Resources

These lists can help with your college research, campus visits, and scholarship search. Be sure to work with a counselor or trusted advisor to prepare your applications for these programs.

Either view the full list in this window or click ‘view larger version’ in the bottom right corner of each table for an expanded view. The lists can be filtered, sorted, or grouped based on different characteristics.

Traveling to campuses for multiple visit programs can be extremely expensive, especially for students looking at colleges far from home. This sortable list of fly-in and diversity programs for prospective and admitted students indicates which colleges offer travel assistance for students (and families).

Colleges provide a range of financial aid—including grants, loans, work-study, and scholarships—to help your college dreams become reality. Their award packages will list the cost of tuition along with the estimated price of housing, meal plans, travel expenses, books, lab fees, personal expenses, and more. However, the total amount of money needed to pay for college in a school year—often called the cost of attendance (COA)—doesn’t always account for all of the money needed for campus activities, studying abroad, or household expenses that you may have.

No matter what type of aid is available at the colleges you are considering, it’s important to research financial options from other sources. A quick web search for scholarships can reveal thousands of options, so we’ve built an interactive list to help you get started.

Here’s a list of scholarships available nationwide for students from BIPOC, first-generation to college, lower-incomeundocumentedLGBTQ+, and other underrepresented backgrounds.

Organizations in your community are a great source of support, too. In addition, don’t skip over the smaller scholarship awards—they can add up quickly! Search our database to find application details for additional scholarship opportunities in your local area.

Application and financial aid deadlines for pre-college programs vary a lot. So, staying organized and making a plan is critical for securing a spot in a free or well-funded program! Visit the websites below to find more information about course options, program eligibility, start and end dates, program costs, financial aid criteria, required materials, housing, additional activities, and more.

These programs typically run for a week or more, provide rigorous academic opportunities, expose students to college life, and establish a larger network of like-minded college-going peers. The cost of attending (or applying to) a program, should never outweigh the benefits – and you should never go into debt to participate in a program!

Events

Each February, our annual Scholarship Marathon encourages you to complete more admissions and scholarship applications. You can submit application confirmation(s) during the event for the chance to win a $1,000 scholarship from College Greenlight.

From June to September, our annual Summer Challenge helps you jumpstart your college search. After you have added five schools to your Cappex college list, enter for a chance to win a $500 scholarship from College Greenlight.

Block Parties highlight parts of the college search and admissions process from September through May every year. These events are hosted by admissions staff or College Greenlight staff and frequently include panels of current college students who can tell you what college life is like.

    College Scavenger Hunt worksheet
    College Scavenger Hunt