Best apps for community college students

Community college runs on a phone. Your classes, your deadlines, your transfer plan, all of it lives in a handful of apps, and picking the right handful saves you real time and real money. This list is short on purpose. These are the ones students keep using after week two.

Transfer planning

If you plan to move to a four-year university, this is the category that saves you real money. The wrong class costs you twice.

• TransferTrack. Full disclosure, this one is ours. It checks which of your credits count at each target school, compares what each school would really cost you, and lays out deadlines term by term. Free, launching soon on iOS, with a waitlist open now.
• Common App for transfer. The standard application platform once you are ready to apply to universities. It handles the application itself, not the planning before it.
• EdVisorly. Connects community college students with four-year universities and helps you explore transfer pathways.

Classes and assignments

Most community colleges run on one of these, so you rarely get to choose.

• Canvas. Where your grades, assignments, and professor messages live at most schools. Get the mobile app and turn on notifications for due dates.

Studying

Free beats paid here. Both of these cover almost any intro course.

• Quizlet. Flashcards and practice tests, and someone has usually already made a set for your exact textbook chapter.
• Khan Academy. Free video lessons and practice for math, science, and economics. Strongest for the courses most likely to trip up a GPA.

Notes and organization

One place for everything beats six half-used apps.

• Notion. Syllabus tracker, class notes, and to-do lists in one workspace. Free for students.
• Google Calendar. Unsexy and unbeatable. Put every deadline from every syllabus in it during week one.

Focus

For the nights when your phone is the enemy.

• Flora. Grows a virtual tree while you stay off your phone. Kill the session, kill the tree. Surprisingly effective.

The one mistake no app fixes after the fact

Taking a class that does not transfer. Every credit that does not count at your next school is tuition paid twice, and most students find out after the fact. That is the exact problem TransferTrack was built for. If you are at a community college and a university is the plan, join the waitlist and you will be planning from day one. More questions? See the community college transfer FAQ.