CSO College Center is an online clearinghouse of college programs and admissions information serving first-generation and historically underserved student populations. The central mission of CSO College Center is to expose students to the wealth of college opportunities available to them. In effect, CSO College Center is a matching tool to assist students in finding strong college programs, while serving colleges’ interests in better reaching this student audience.

The site contains six sections:

College Guide—CSO College Center intends to be a national and central resource to turn to in educating college-bound students, parents, high school counselors, high school teachers and administrators, college admissions counselors and administrators alike on college opportunities and admissions information concerning first-generation and underserved students. A vast library of information and articles shed expert insight into the college search, admissions process, and college experience as it pertains to the target student population.

Ask the Experts—the site allows visitors to learn from a library of contributed student, parent, counselor, and college administrator articles, as well as ask specific questions directly to knowledgeable college counselors. A national reservoir of high school counselors and college admissions professionals will contract with Center for Student Opportunity to serve as a help desk to answer college search and preparation questions.

SearchNow—visitors to CSO College Center can search a database of CSO partner colleges active in first-generation and underserved recruitment. The database is searchable by broad demographic, academic, personal and extracurricular criteria to help attain a short list of colleges from which to focus in more detail. Visitors can save their searches for future reference.

College Profiles—partnering colleges and universities post multi-page profiles, with applicable links to their website, promoting their institution and specifically the programs they offer to assist first-generation and underserved populations with their acclimation to college.

ConnectNow—CSO College Center also provides a matching resource to link first-generation and underserved students with partnering colleges and universities. The site gives visitors the functionality to register personal and academic information into a database that can be accessed by partner colleges. Registrants to this service will also have the ability to send their profiles directly to colleges with which they wish to have further communications.

Programs in Practice—the site additionally is home to profiles of existing community-based, regional, and national nonprofit organizations conducting outstanding programming in college access, youth development and education. This section serves as a clearinghouse of information on programs working in the realm of college counseling, preparation, and mentoring, highlighting opportunities and best practices in this arena.