“There is a common misconception that scholarships are awarded only based on academic or athletic merit,” says Venkates Swaminathan, founder and CEO of college admissions coaching site Lifelaunchr. “All it takes is a simple web search to find hundreds of unique and interesting scholarships, available to all types of students and just waiting for applicants.”

To assist you in finding such a resource, I suggest you seek out an educational consultant who can meet your basic criteria.

We are not just about helping students with college, but about helping them figure out where they are going with their lives. It’s a much more profound idea, and teens and parents both love it.

Many parents have a hard time when their kids are about to go to college. LifeLaunchr was created to help students and families find their best-choice college and get in, and to navigate the confusing, opaque college admission process with less stress.

“This is a significant improvement that eases concerns about the transparency of the process,” said Venkates Swaminathan, who is based in San Francisco.

With the top applicants from every high school applying to the best schools in the country, it's important to have an edge in your college application. In our 2019 edition, check out ten of our newest Harvard application essays and profiles from students who made it in.

The idea for LifeLaunchr was born out of the experience Swami had as his daughter went through the college admissions process. Finding the right colleges to apply to, working through the requirements, and getting everything in order to apply to college was time-consuming and confusing.

College admissions testing was long viewed as a great equalizer. All students could aim for a maximum 36 on the ACT or 1600 on the SAT, no matter where they grew up or went to school. Their scores functioned as a currency of merit for a nation that aspired to meritocracy. Now, even the College Board, owner of the SAT, acknowledges that testing alone is no equalizer in a society with profound inequities of opportunity. But the testing organization’s latest response to that dilemma — the creation of a numerical rating of adversity for each student’s high school and neighborhood — has generated fierce debate.

College should be about students finding their passion and deepening their knowledge, but to too many people it has become a status symbol and a badge. A better system would be one that is transparent and simple.

LifeLaunchr Scholarship Match, a free tool, provides an individualized list of college scholarships based on multiple criteria, including location, academics, personal interests, and affiliations. LifeLaunchr does not accept advertising, and vets all scholarship programs to ensure they are legitimate and come from reputable sources. The tool indicates a student’s match score, or how well the student fits the program criteria, for each scholarship. Students can also see the total amount of scholarship money available to them based on their eligibility. With a subscription, counselors, parents and students can get automated alerts and reminders as well as access to college planning advice.

LifeLaunchr unveiled a free college-matching tool that shows families in the college search process a student’s chances of admission, expected cost and potential future earnings. Using the list, families can create personalized lists based on 35 criteria that include budget, academic programs, location, culture and military support, reducing the need to track down information in various locations around the internet.

As the number of colleges students apply to continues to grow, the number of college admissions essays students goes up as well. If you’re a sophomore or junior (or the parent of one) starting to think about college applications, you might be wondering: “How many college admissions essays will I have to write?”

The number and percentage of high school students who go on to four-year college has been rising steadily for years: 26% of 18-24 year-olds were in four-year colleges in the year 2000. The corresponding figure in 2015 was 30%. But as the costs of college increase and many college graduates see only middling job prospects, more and more families are asking the question: is college the best choice for everyone? This article by LifeLaunchr founder Venkates Swaminathan helps answer the question.

College costs continue to soar, and student loan debt in the U.S. now exceeds $1.3 trillion dollars. That means the average student graduating college in 2016 had over $37,000 in debt. So for parents and students navigating the admissions system, it’s critical to understand how financial aid really works. Unfortunately, as with everything else in this area, college financial aid is complex and confusing. This article by LifeLaunchr founder Venkates Swaminathan explains what you need to know about the system.

The closest thing to a college counselor without spending thousands of dollars, this multi-faceted site is trying to solve multiple problems.

LifeLaunchr announced today the immediate launch of its platform for virtual coaching for college planning. The new service makes available for the first time, expert coaching, courses, and tools for college planning available in one place at an affordable price, and in many cases for free.