So, you want to find a college. But where do you start? One answer is becoming almost automatic: the Internet.

No surprise there, right? What might surprise you is the amazing amount of time it's possible to waste while surfing the Web. Even a simple search for "Christian Colleges and Universities" will land you in a maze of thousands of Web sites. It's likely you'll have no way of knowing which ones contain the information you need.

Fortunately, you don't have to run the maze blind. You can save yourself a lot of frustration by figuring out where to start, what to look for, and when to log off.

One of the best places to start is right here! Campus Life has a new Web site, www.campuslifecollegeguide.com, designed specifically for students on the college-search circuit. Here we've compiled a heap of information to help you take on the process of figuring out the next step for your life—always a daunting task, but not impossible with the right resources.

We started with three of the biggest questions you'll ask: "How do I find a college?"; "How do I pay for college?"; and "What will life at college be like?" Then we catalogued articles from our past College Guide special issues under these topics to help you make your future plans. Over the past few years, we've talked with college students, high school students, admissions counselors, professors, and even the occasional college graduate to help give you perspective on the various aspects of choosing a college.

While at our site, you can sign up for a free e-mail newsletter to help you with all the details of actually getting into college. It will remind you about stuff like application deadlines, dates for those all-important ACT and SAT tests, and crucial financial aid dates. There's a lot to remember, so it's important to stay organized.

Once you have the basic idea of what you want and/or need in a college, you can begin to make a list of the colleges you're interested in. There are literally hundreds of Christian colleges in the United States alone, so this is where you stand to waste the most time. Two sites that will help you find what you're looking for are the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities site (www.gospelcom.net/cccu) and ChristianCollege.Com (www.christiancollege.com).

The CCCU site lists 93 colleges and universities that meet strict criteria regarding their commitment to Christ-centered education. The most useful part of this site is a directory/search engine (found at www.ChristianCollege.org) that matches you up with colleges that offer what you're interested in.

First, the search engine asks you to enter the various things you're looking for in a college, such as majors (don't worry—you can choose more than one), the types of degrees offered, church affiliation, available sports, study-abroad programs and location. Then it crunches your info and gives you a list of colleges that fit your specifications. Each school has a mini-homepage on the CCCU site that lists its location, a basic summary of what it offers, available majors, and other information, as well as a link to its Web page.

Along the way, you can tell the engine to mark the schools you want to know more about, and when you're done, it will e-mail each school your name, address and year of graduation. The schools themselves will send you more specific information within a few weeks of your request.

ChristianCollege.Com is a similar site, containing information about a whole bunch of Christian colleges. While the process is not as polished and pretty, this site does just about everything ChristianCollege.org does, along with adding a few search criteria such as region, state, tuition, total cost and size. Like ChristianCollege.org, it gives you mini-homepages with basic information about the schools that fit your search, along with links to the colleges' own Web sites. There's also a form to fill out to request more information.

Both of these sites are more than just search engines, however. At the CCCU site, you can also get perspectives on attending a Christian college and advice about financial aid. At ChristianCollege.Com, you can chat live with admissions counselors from various schools, get information on college fairs and seminars, and even watch videos from certain schools. These are all great options to take advantage of, because they'll help you make the most informed choice.

OK, so you've made a list of colleges that have the right major, the right location, and might even be within your budget. Have you done all you can with your Web resources? Not quite. Most of the colleges listed in these search engines are there because they have Web sites. Your next step is to go down your personal list of potential colleges and dig a little deeper into each one.

One site that does a great job of "showing" you around campus is the Malone College homepage (www.malone.edu). It has many of the elements you'd want to find on any school's Web site: admissions information, including financial aid specifics; detailed academic information, including class schedules, specifics about major requirements, and off-campus study pro grams; and listings of sports and other extra-curricular activities. The Web does a great job of delivering this kind of data—the stuff that's important, but too bulky to fit on a brochure.

Another great example of a college Web site is Indiana Wesleyan University's homepage (www.indwes.edu). It gives you most of the info above, including a campus tour, and it also provides a sample application you can fill out and submit right there on the Web site.

Colleges maintain Web sites for many of the same reasons they mail out those glossy brochures—to give information, to promote their campuses, and to help you figure out which school is right for you. And much like brochures, Web sites can only tell you so much.

Visiting a school online is not the same as truly visiting the school, taking in the scene, listening in on a class and talking with admissions counselors, students and professors. Once you've done enough Web research to narrow your list of choices, make it a point to visit as many schools as you can.

The Internet is a great place to start your search. And while it can save you a lot of traveling, calling and mailing, you shouldn't let it substitute for real, personal contact. Sometimes the old-fashioned approach is still the best.

Laura Hepker is the assistant editor for Christianity Online.

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