Nine Great Tools for the Online College Student

College students can get just about anything online for free. Whether they need to define a word, look up a quote, organize their schedule, take class notes, or decorate their dorm room, it’s all online today.

Here are nine great tools to use for your college planning:

For the student who wants textbooks on the cheap…

Public Domain Reprints lets you print out books in the public domain for a lot cheaper than your average textbook costs. The tool searches the archive of books available through sources like Project Gutenberg and other copyright-free tools. The final cost depends on the book size, but I haven’t seen costs exceed $15.

For the note-taker…

Notesake is an online application that doubles as a notepad with HTML formatting. Tag your notes with your course name to find them later and share the notes with friends. You can also print out the notes or save to a PDF.

For the organizer…

Notely is a collection of online tools that helps make your life at school a whole lot simpler. Organize your class notes, schedule, to-do list, calendar, contacts, and more with a single login. You can keep track of your grades, upload files, stay in touch with friends, and even collaborate with your classmates on a whiteboard.

CollegeRuled is your one-stop shop for organizing your college schedule. It’s an easy-to-create class and extracurricular activity schedule. Just punch in the courses, activities, and times, print it out, and tape it to your door to tell your friends when and where you’ll be.

For the student who searches for answers…

Schoolr combines all the possible searches you may need for particular words of phrases by aggregating Wikipedia, Urban Dictionary, a regular dictionary, a Google search, an encyclopedia search, and more.

The Free Dictionary combines all the other tools you’d need for your search. It includes an online dictionary/thesaurus, an eBay and Amazon search for those dorm essentials, a legal dictionary for the students studying political science, a medical dictionary for the bio lovers, a financial dictionary for econ students, and a whole lot more.

For the skimmer…

Litsum is one of those online Cliff’s notes that your school probably doesn’t know about. Get full chapter analysis, discussion, and more.

Sparknotes is the other Cliff’s notes tool that your school and just about every classmate is already using. After all, beyond just offering abridged versions of popular books, you have test prep questions, academic charts, and college facts at your fingertips.

For the college student who wants the dorm to look like home…

HomeSlyce takes the difficulty out of planning your dorm room with your roommate next year. Build your ideal dorm room with a roommate, collaborate with your roommates, and split the bill on the items. This is useful if you’ve never met your roommate face-to-face or if the long-distance relationship makes it too difficult for you to choose all your items.