It used to be a rite of passage for every college-bound high schooler: dust off the typewriter, labor for hours with white-out and finally troop triumphantly to the post office to send off your applications. But these days many colleges are offering a high-tech alternative. Schools are encouraging prospective students to apply online.

More than three of four colleges provide some type of online application, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling. Some are simple forms that you download, print and fill out the old-fashioned way. But an increasing number are applications that you can fill out and submit wholly online.

Online applications provide advantages to both colleges and students. Obtaining information electronically streamlines the admissions process and cuts costs for colleges, plus it enables them to recruit you online. For students, applying online means you can spend more time thinking (as opposed to trying to type to perfection) and then can simply cut and paste your life goals into the forms. You will also be notified immediately that you've met a school's deadline.

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These applications save a lot of time. Students can quickly fill them out for several different colleges at once on websites like Collegenet.com and Embark.com, which aggregate the applications of hundreds of schools. Some colleges even allow you to use the data you enter on your admissions application for your financial-aid forms, eliminating the next big paperwork headache that many high school seniors must face.

So far, colleges have offered online admissions as an option while still receiving most of their students' applications via snail mail. But this fall one school, West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, W.Va., will begin requiring all applicants to submit their materials online. "This is the next step toward what we have been trying to do on campus," says West Virginia Wesleyan's president, Bill Haden. "We've been giving our students laptops and setting up wireless networks. Now we're asking our applicants to take this step into the future with us." West Virginia Wesleyan's admissions staff travels with laptops that prospective students may use if they don't have Internet access at home. Students are also encouraged to utilize the college's computers for their applications when they come for a campus visit.

Whether they are mandatory or not, online applications should prove to be an increasingly popular tool for high schoolers of the future. In a survey released in June by Embark.com, 43% of college-bound students said they would prefer to file their applications online, up from 21% in 1998. That's good news for college admissions departments and for companies like Embark that serve them. The typewriter is getting dustier by the minute.

Source: TIME/The Princeton Review's The Best College For You 2001