Four Ways myOptions Encourage supports You & Your Students Differently

It can be difficult to know whether a new college and career program is right for you when they sound similar. Here are four ways myOptions Encourage supports you and your students differently.

1. Free

Budgets are tight and we believe all students—regardless of background, income, or zip code—should have access to free and robust college and career planning tools. That’s why we offer our program free to educators and students. Our network of 2,000 colleges and universities allows us to offer the program for free and provides previously unknown or out-of-reach opportunities to students through optional recruitment, making college more accessible.

2. No Testing Required

While myOptions Encourage is part of the ACT family, the test is not required to use our student app, Encourage. Students can benefit from matching with colleges and scholarships and exploring careers and majors on the web and on mobile no matter what test they take – ACT, SAT, PSAT or no test at all. If a student does take the ACT, their score is automatically connected, and they have one login for both myACT and Encourage.

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3. Educator Reports

When you log into your myOptions Encourage educator account, you will automatically see the students connected to you. You’re just two clicks away from their college and scholarship matches to guide your 1:1 conversations with students. Programmatic opportunities can be quickly identified by seeing your school’s aggregated results in comparison with state and national results by clicking the right navigation. myOptions Encourage gets you the information you need quickly and easily so you can spend more time supporting students.

4. Guide Exploration and Planning

myOptions Encourage and our student app, Encourage, are designed to give students and educators a safe and easy way to explore and plan for the future - colleges (2 years, 4 years, and trade schools), careers, and the military. We offer resources, like lesson plans and a family guide, to help educators empower students and their families with information (alongside the Encourage app) as they plan for life after high school.

Download Lesson Plans

Download the Family Guide

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Ready to Get Started?

Request an Educator Account

Getting started with myOptions Encourage is easy - simply request an educator account using the form below.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is myOptions Encourage?

myOptions Encourage is a free college and career planning program providing streamlined resources to broaden your impact and enhance your efforts in guiding all students toward their paths after high school. myOptions Encourage serves about 1 million students annually across 5,000 school districts and 13,000 high schools in all 50 states.

Encourage is the name of our free college and career planning app for students. Find it online through your browser, on iOS and Android.

Why should students download the Encourage app?
The Encourage app is free and combines goal setting and milestone tracking with resources for exploration, career planning, and paying for college. Explore careers, match with colleges and scholarships, define your goals, and plan your future—all in one app. Find it online through your browser or in the app store for iOS and Android.
How is the program free?

Students with the Encourage app have the option of being contacted by our network of 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.

Students can control their recruiting preferences at any time and the app experience is the same whether they are included in recruitment or not.

Where does student data go?
Students who opt-in to recruitment from our network can expect information to be sent directly to colleges, universities, educational service providers, and career service providers for communication purposes. Unlike other college and career planning resources, we strictly utilize student information for educational purposes and never share student data with commercial marketers.
Where do you source information about scholarships, colleges, and careers?
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.