Once a student is ready to submit their applications to colleges suggested to them via Parchment.com, the student can request that their official high school transcripts be sent to their desired schools. Parchment.com sends confirmation when an electronic record is received.
The student application database started on MyChances.net was the brainchild of brothers James and Brent Pirruccello, who were surprised by the lack of reliable web information for students researching which college, law school, or medical school would be best for them.
“An enormous amount of effort is put into researching college admissions each year by students and parents, but all of that effort evaporates after each admissions cycle,” said James Pirruccello, a general manager of Parchment.com. “When students use parchment.com, the fruits of their effort are passed along for the benefit of the next group of applicants.
The internet has a host of sites promising help in the complicated college application process. Recent application sites include The Essay Exchange, which launched last August and has a repository of about 700 essays written by current students and college graduates who shared their successful written works for $2 apiece.
For between $2 and $5, a prospective student can scroll through the essays and get a feel for the structure and subject matter that helped get another student into a college or university.
There’s a growing market for any service that promises help for students navigating the application process. There is only about one counselor for every 500 public high school students in the U.S., according to the American School Counselor Association.
College counseling experts said Parchment.com could be another valuable web-based tool for students whose families can’t afford expensive private advisers, but the site likely wouldn’t bridge the gap between a first-generation college applicant, for example, and a high school senior who meets with application experts.
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