Student-oriented Web sites are making the grade.

Sites catering to college-bound high schoolers are linking potential candidates with study guides, financial aid programs, scholarship awards and athletic opportunities to make the transition from high school to university fast, efficient and economical. Today's high school students are more Web-savvy than ever. Students consider the Web to be the second most important resources available to them -- second only to their guidance counselors, according to a study cited by Campus Pipeline Inc., a Salt Lake City, Utah-based vendor of enterprise software to about 65 colleges and universities. The survey was conducted by the Arts & Sciences Group, a private consulting group. And teenagers are increasingly using the Internet to assimilate and share information, as well as evaluate products to make informed purchase decisions. According to Jupiter Research, 47 million teens and kids will be online by 2005, as a result the growing integration of the Internet into the educational curriculum will be a contuing catalyst for online adoption. No doubt, evaluating data in the college selection process is part of this estimation. More and more college applications are being completed online. Further, as Web sites set up by individual colleges and universities expand, there are complimentary locations that exist exclusively to assist students with their pre-college needs and concerns.