I love a great adventure–whether it’s an intellectual journey into a new book, an expedition to an unknown city, a spiritual exploration of the higher realms of consciousness, or even a non-linear odyssey on the Internet, where one click can launch me in such a dizzying array of directions that afterwards I can’t even remember how it all started.

Sometimes it’s fun to just let yourself follow link after link as you surf online, but when you’re in the research phase of your college application process, this is not a good strategy.

When exploring college websites, you’re going to come across lots of interesting bits of information.  You’ll discover programs, courses, professors, internships, profiles of current students, and much more.

Guess what?

Staying organized while researching colleges is absolutely essential.  You’re not going to remember where you found all these details, and you’ll need easy access to them when you participate in alumni interviews, go on campus visits, and answer the “Why us” question, which is often a required part of college-specific supplements to the Common App.

Here’s a great solution, which doesn’t involve old-school file folders. . . .

Evernote is a free, easy-to-use software for keeping track of all this information.

In this video, I show you how I used Evernote while researching New York University’s website.

Installing Evernote is simple and quick.  Just go to www.evernote.com and follow the directions.

One of the things that I love about Evernote is that it’s very easy to search your documents using keywords.  Nevertheless, I strongly recommend that you create separate notebooks or stacks for each college.

Trust me, you won’t regret using Evernote to organize your research, and I’m sure you’ll find many other great uses for it.

Enjoy!

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