BigFuture: Helping All Students Take the Right First Step Post High School
Thursday, August 25, 2022
By: Greg Rafal, BigFuture Program Implementation Director, College Board
Reading time: 3 min.
Adriana from David Brearley High School in New Jersey wins $40,000 BigFuture scholarship. As you gear up for an exciting new school year, all of us at BigFuture want to share the latest about how we’re evolving to serve you and your students. As you too see in your-day-to-day work, navigating the path to life after high school can feel
overwhelming and complicated. Students regularly tell us it’s hard to figure out where to even begin or who to talk to. They often don’t understand that every student’s path is unique. Everybody starts somewhere – and getting somewhere can start
with BigFuture®.
BigFuture from College Board is a free, personalized, and mobile-friendly online guide that helps millions of students take the right first step post high school. Informed by students, educators, and over 100 years of College Board expertise, we simplify
the journey and offer scholarships that reward students for taking specific steps to explore careers, plan for college, and pay for college.
Explore Careers
Students tell us that passion and desire to make a difference in the world are the top reasons for the focus areas they select after high school. BigFuture offers free career exploration tools that empower students to find the right career for them. When
students log in to their personalized dashboard, they can search over 1,000 careers across a variety of fields and education levels. BigFuture shows how much they can expect to earn, what the work is like, and what the future demand for jobs is like.
To get started, students can take a 15-minute career quiz to reflect on what they care about and like to do. Afterwards, they’ll get their own list of 30 potential careers to explore on BigFuture. “Using BigFuture helped me prepare for college
by providing resources and tools that allowed me to narrow down what I wanted to do as a career,” said Tabitha from Ocoee High School in Ocoee, Florida.
Plan for College
There are thousands of colleges out there, and BigFuture is here to help students find the right one for them. BigFuture simplifies the college search by focusing first on what matters most to students, like location, majors offered, and campus life.
Students can search and filter over 3,000 college profiles with rich content about campus life and admissions provided by colleges themselves. You can also view hundreds of videos of real college students talking about their experience on campus.
Pay for College
BigFuture helps all students take action to pay for college. Students can explore and match with scholarships based on their background, future plans, and past achievements. BigFuture includes over $4 billion available in scholarships from programs in
the National Scholarship Providers Association database. Students can also access resources about financial aid and a guide on how to complete the FAFSA. Students can use tools like our Expected Family Contribution calculator.
Finally, when students in the class of 2023 complete specific steps on BigFuture, such as completing the FAFSA or strengthening their college list, they automatically qualify for BigFuture Scholarships. Every month, BigFuture awards two $40,000 scholarships
and lots of $500 scholarships. Since 2019, more than $15 million in scholarships have been awarded to students who use BigFuture. At least half of the scholarships will be awarded to students whose families earn less than $60,000 a year. Learn more and meet our class of 2023 winners here.
Students can log in bigfuture.org today to get started.
Questions? Contact us at bigfuture@collegeboard.org. We talk to educators all the time and want to hear from you. You can also say hello at the NCAN Conference in Atlanta!
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