Petersons.com

Citation

McKain, J. (2000), "Petersons.com", Online Information Review, Vol. 24 No. 5, pp. 401-411. https://doi.org/10.1108/oir.2000.24.5.401.11

Petersons.com, the self‐proclaimed “education supersite”, serves a myriad people seeking information about private secondary and post‐secondary institutions. With nearly 14,000 links to Petersons.com from other Web sites, this site draws a wide audience. As is the case with any successful commercial site, fee‐based services are offered, but despite the barrage of advertising from test preparation centres and other higher education institutions, if users focus on the material in the centre of the pages, they will find that the site offers a tremendous number of useful resources and links for the eager one‐stop shopper who is hunting for facts about schools, colleges, universities, financial aid, camps, and jobs.

From the main page users can choose from the following options: explore colleges and universities; pursue graduate programs; distance learning courses and programs; career education; find a summer camp, program, or job; investigate study abroad programs; select a private school; search executive education programs; and English language programs. Each of these umbrellas covers a multitude of other topics, some of which are not self‐explanatory. For example, unless users happen to click on the heading Investigate study abroad programs, they would not know that information useful to international students resides there. Despite this anomaly Petersons.com is easy to navigate, and most links take individuals to information that proves useful to them. Under Explore Colleges and Universities, for instance, users can link to lists of competitive colleges, nursing programs, culinary schools, or career education options. In other words these lists encompass all of the basic information that individuals would need to know about cost of tuition, number of students, and percentage of full‐time faculty with terminal degrees. Articles on preparing for college are available from this page, as are links to financial aid information.

Pursue graduate programs has a similar layout to Explore colleges and universities, yet more specific, for individuals may choose by educational area from among a list of ten, including MBA programs, law schools and medical schools. The preparation section provides links to various graduate‐level entrance examinations, including practice tests for the GRE1 and GMAT1 tests.

Kudos to Petersons.com for pulling together so much information in one location and in a fashion that is easily navigable, and for allowing people to fill their carts with the vast majority of this information for free. This site, although geared toward students and their parents, fills an important niche for librarians and for career counsellors as a ready reference source.