A Free Program You Can Depend On
Every year more than 20,000 educators use myOptions Encourage to serve over 4 million students across 5,000 school districts and 10,000 high schools in all 50 states & D.C.
We believe all students—regardless of background, income, or zip code—should have access to free and robust college and career planning tools.
Support for Your Work
The no cost myOptions Encourage program complements the critical college and career work you do each week, month, and quarter. It supports your students outside of 1:1 meetings.
Resources that meet your students where they are – day or night
- Stay on track with bite-sized tasks based on their graduation year
- Receive personalized matches from more than 4,200 colleges and 80,000 unique scholarships
- Explore or match with careers and majors after a short interest quiz
- Opt-in to be contacted by our network of 2,000 partnering colleges, universities, and scholarship organizations who are looking for students who are a good match
Open the door to new opportunities with recruitment
Students have the option of being contacted by our network of 2,000 partnering colleges and universities looking for students like them. This network allows us to offer the program for free and provides previously unknown or out-of-reach opportunities, making college more accessible.
"Encourage helps me understand what colleges would best fit me and what majors they have to offer so I know what college would be best for my future professions. A college has also reached out to me via email and showed interest in me as a future student."
-9th Grade Student
ARKANSAS
Information From Trusted Sources
The college, scholarship, and career data in the Encourage app comes from respected national sources including SuperCollege, O*NET, and IPEDS so you can rest assured your students are making decisions based on credible information.
Ready-Made Resources to Support Students & Families
Use Encourage to structure the big conversations about college – including career and college exploration, financial planning, and more.
Our free lesson plans include ideas for in-class interactive activities, and our family guide is a resource for families to guide conversations with their student(s).
Make the most of 1:1 meetings
- Inform students about the scholarship deadlines from their plan.
- Reflect with students about colleges that aren’t currently on their lists but could be an ideal fit for their futures.
- Discuss careers students are considering and the education required to pursue them.
Identify Development Opportunities
- Discover insights from aggregate reports of your student's majors of interest and college characteristics.
- Identify additional education opportunities if there are gaps in student interest in specific programs or schools.
Partnering with the Leading Education Organizations
As a partner organization, you can customize questions on the college and career preference form for students and educators in your network. myOptions Encourage will add your results to an interactive dashboard with comparative local, state, and national data to inform:
- Program evaluation and feedback
- Advocacy and policy initiatives
- Internal communications and strategy planning (including professional development)
- Fundraising and report writing
- Membership drives
- Monitoring student interests
- Key planning milestones
How the Program Works
- Students share their preferences for life after high school via the Encourage app profile or a college and career preference form.
- Students access Encourage, our free college and career planning app—online through a web browser, on iOS or Android—to explore colleges, scholarships, careers, and majors.
- Educators invite students and access reports from their accounts to see students’ college and career plans as well as school, state, and national trends to plan support.
- Educators and students receive ongoing guidance, resources, and encouragement from our newsletters.
Contact Us
We'd love to connect, demonstrate our tools, and show the suite of resources available to students and educators. Complete the form below to reach out to our team!
Melissa Caperton
Senior Director of Education Programs and Partnerships
Peggy Jansen
Educator Liason
Melanie Goodson
Partnerships Manager
Frequently Asked Questions