IllinoisMentor at collegezone.com can serve as a valuable tool in choosing a college, planning for and meeting admission requirements, and getting answers to commonly asked questions. You can use it throughout the admission process, from the time you begin your research to the time you're set to attend the college of your choice.

Career Center

• Career Information — Learn how the Career Center can help you choose a career.
• Career Self-Assessment — Discover how to explore careers by identifying your personality traits, interests, and skills.
• Career Matching Assistant — Find a career best suited to your interests and skills (career data provided by the IL Department of Employment Security).
• List of Careers — View a comprehensive list of careers (career data provided by the IL Department of Employment Security).
  • List of Careers by Clusters
  • Alphabetical List of Careers
• Links to Career Resources — Visit other website resources for information on jobs, internships and volunteering resources.
• My Mentor Careers — Store the results of your career exploration.

Plan for College

• High School Planner — While still in high school, you can plan ahead to meet college entrance requirements.
• Planner Timeline — Find out what you should be doing each year of high school to best prepare for college.
• Middle School — Start to plan for college early by learning what you can do now to make it easier later.
• Transfer Students — Get information to help ease your transfer from one Illinois college to another, and to learn how your courses will transfer between colleges.
• Graduate Students — Learn how pursuing a graduate or professional degree differs from getting a bachelor's degree and review some strategies for making it work.
• Adult Students — Find out how to better face the challenges of returning to college or attending for the first time after working or raising a family.
• Military Service — Learn about programs available to those interested in military service, both during and after your college years.
• Teachers — Find out about teaching certification requirements in Illinois and get information about available programs, including loan repayment programs, to help make college affordable for future teachers.
• Add Your Counselor — Include your high school counselor in your plans for college by allowing him or her to view your My Mentor section of IllinoisMentor.

Find a College

• Campus Tours — Learn more about admission, costs, financial aid, academics and student life.
• Comparative View — Compare colleges in Illinois.
• Matching Assistant — View colleges that match your specific requirements.
• Distance Search — Find the college closest to any ZIP code or city.
• Mentor Search — Search the IllinoisMentor website or colleges' websites.
• My Mentor Recruiter — Release your data to specific colleges of your choosing.

Financial Aid

• Financial Aid — Find out about all the types of financial aid — scholarships, grants, loans, and work programs — and how they can help you and your family finance your college education.
• Scholarship Search — Use these free reputable scholarship search services to locate available programs based on personal information you provide.
• FAFSA Transfer — Once you've learned about applying for financial aid through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), you can transfer your My Mentor profile information to FAFSA on the Web and save time when completing your application.
• e-Messaging Sign-up — Subscribe to College Zone's e-Messaging service and receive periodic messages from ISAC about how to plan for, find and apply to, and finance college.
• Calculators — Use these calculators to estimate the amount of state and federal financial aid you may qualify for, the monthly student loan payment amount once it enters repayment, the monthly payment amount on a graduated repayment plan, and more. In addition, the SLOPE (Student Loans Over Projected Earnings) Calculator can be used to determine what percentage of your income will be taken up by student loan payments, based on your career choice, and how that will impact your monthly budget and future borrowing for high-ticket items such as cars and homes.

Applications and Transcripts

• Applications and Transcripts — Apply online and request your official transcript to be sent electronically to the colleges of your choice. You can complete, manage, and submit your admission applications from this area of the website.

Ask an Expert

• Student Support — Provides technical support for the IllinoisMentor website.
• FAQ's — Find answers to frequently asked questions.

My Mentor

• Applications and Transcripts — Once you begin a college admission application, My Mentor will track where you stopped entering your information and will link you to all applications in progress. It will also provide the date and confirmation number of your submitted applications. In addition, you may release your transcript at the same time you submit your online applications.
• Colleges — Any colleges you add to My Mentor will be stored in and accessed through this area. These colleges will automatically be used in worksheets and tables calling for colleges. You may add or delete colleges from this list at any time.
• E-mail — You can store your sent or received e-mail messages.
• Profile — The information you enter about yourself will be stored in your Profile. Make sure to keep your information as accurate and up to date as possible. The information in your Profile will be used in your applications and when you search for potential scholarships.
• Recruiter — You can select the schools to which you want to send your Profile information.
• Events — You may access your personal or college events on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
• Careers — Once you have completed the Career Self-Assessment and Career Matching Assistant, any careers or majors that have met your specifications can be stored and accessed here.
• High School Planner Output — Upon completion of the High School Planner section of IllinoisMentor, you can view a summary of your current courses in comparison to the selected schools in My Mentor.