Your College Dashboard: BridgeU

It is widely known that university students often change their major, switch courses, or even transfer to a different university. In order to ensure that high school students make the best decision for their future, the counselors at AISG have implemented a program named BridgeU.

Naviance has helped juniors and seniors at AISG in the past until recently, when it blocked their service to international schools. Hence, AISG has transferred to using BridgeU as a source of help for all high school students to narrow down their colleges options.

According to the official website, BridgeU is a “world-class university and careers guidance for global secondary schools.” As for freshmen and sophomores, BridgeU can help them set goals depending on their dream universities. The program also breaks down the college-prep process, which is important for freshmen and sophomores to thoroughly understand beforehand. Moreover, the system includes a personal statement writing builder, an application organizer, a teacher recommendation section, and an overview of test management. A significant new integration into the program include the Common App, which helps college applicants connect with colleges and universities in the US and 20 other countries. Another addition is ManageBac, an IB-focused system that allows students in the IB curriculum to turn in their assignment digitally.

The program includes a lot of tools that can help individual students to identify the type of university they want to attend. However, the counselors state that BridgeU will solely be used for college visit sign-ups and college-related activities, at the moment.

After taking a comprehensive test to make a list of possible universities, BridgeU helps shortlist the options based on their preferred location, class size, subject interests, and tuitions fees. Counselors will help students seek scholarship or funding opportunities; other cases include different requirements for different universities.

Our high school counselor, Ms. Hong remarked on the necessity of BridgeU. “There are many universities in the world and they will provide the education you are looking, but it is important for you to find the right fit. Before deciding on the universities, you need to make sure you know what you like doing and what you want to do. Then, when you’re searching for your best fit, you know what you’re looking for.”

Ms. Brown, our main college counselor, discussed the importance of introducing BridgeU for students. “BridgeU is very helpful with narrowing down university choices, including majors and what you want to study. Ms. Hong and Ms. Taylor will be introducing BridgeU to the freshmen and sophomores in the following week, and I will be talking about it to the juniors as soon as possible.”

For more information about BridgeU, click here.