Claire Whitaker
Founder of Stepsies. Writes the Stepsies college planning guides and checks each date, fee and rule against the official source.
What the college guides cover
The guides explain how college applications work in the United States and Canada: deadlines, early decision and early action, financial aid forms, essays and tests. They are for students in high school and for their parents. They use plain words and give the official date or rule first.
How we check facts
- Only official sources.
Each date, fee and rule comes from the organization that sets it: the college's own admissions or financial aid site, Federal Student Aid (studentaid.gov), the College Board, the Common App, the University of California or NACAC; for Canadian universities, the province's application centre. We do not copy dates from other blogs. - One record for each fact.
Each fact is stored once with the page it came from and the day we checked it. Every page that shows the fact uses that record, so a change shows everywhere at once. - Sources on every page.
Each guide ends with a list of the official pages behind its facts and the day each one was checked. - No guesses.
When an official source has not yet announced a date, the page says "not confirmed yet" instead of a guess. - Regular checks.
We check the facts again during the application season. "Last updated" shows the last day a fact or the text changed.
These guides give general information, not financial, legal or admissions advice. A college or an agency can change a date at any time, so always check its official page before you submit.
Found a mistake?
Write to [email protected] with the page and the official source. We check each report.