Sallie Mae College Answer: Is It Worth Your Time?
https://www.salliemae.com/plan-for-college/
The SLM Corporation (Student Loan Marketing Corporation), commonly known as Sallie Mae, is a private company whose business involves originating, servicing, and collecting private student loans and outstanding FFEL loans. Although Sallie Mae is mostly known—and not entirely positively so—as the US’s largest student-debt servicing company, its website, College Answer, provides a scholarship search engine, as well as information on college loan payment options and links to its college savings plan websites, Upromise.com and 529.com. The site also contains advice on applying to your college of choice, managing your money while in college, and has interactive tools that enable you to analyze the affordability of schools and compare financial aid award letters.
Search for Scholarships:
- Click on the “Scholarship Search” box on the right-hand side of the page
- Enter the registration information required
- Click on the REGISTER button
- Click on the GET STARTED button
- Fill out the information on the “Background” section of My Profile as thoroughly as possible in order to obtain the best scholarship matches. Select whether or not you wish to be notified of scholarship updates. Click on NEXT.
- Fill out the “Academics” section including your major, career goals, college type, GPA, class standing, and SAT/ACT scores if you have them. Click NEXT.
- Fill out the “Activities” section including any athletics or sports you’re involved in, your hobbies and interests, and your club memberships. Click NEXT.
- Add any other information you feel will help you find targeted scholarships: special circumstances, disabilities, military and religious affiliations, and acceptable degree of accuracy of your search. Click VIEW MATCHES.
The Sallie Mae search engine has paired the information you just provided with scholarships for which you match the eligibility requirements. When we searched at 60% accuracy, we received 16 returns; at 90%, 6 (one of which was a ScholarshipPoints “scholarship”). Each scholarship on the list is hyperlinked to the granting or sponsoring organization and provides contact details, information about deadlines, and award amount. You can’t save any of your search results. You will have to do a new search each time you use the site.
While the controversy over Sallie Mae’s handling and collection of student loans continues, you may want to look with both eyes wide open at the loan information on CollegeAnswer.com. Other information contained on the site, such as applying for college and managing your money, may be of value. As far the scholarship search engine is concerned, our results were so meager and general, with no way to save any data, that we don’t think it’s worth the time to create a profile. We’d suggest giving this site a miss.
Overall, we give Sallie Mae College Answer 1.5 out of 5:
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Sallie Mae College Answer