College rankings are a bunch of numbers that don’t tell you if the school is the right fit for you.

That’s where CampusCompare comes in. We think you are more than a sum of your grades. We let you search for schools based on your own interests, goals and desires.

For example, are you interested in Zoology, but not sure which college even has that major and certainly which college has the best Zoology major in the nation.

By filing out your profile and telling us what you are looking for—from what majors you are interested in, to what activities and clubs you are into, to how much money you’ve got to spend on college, to your college admissions test scores (yes, we still know they count for something), we’ll help you find colleges that match your interests.

And don’t worry. We keep your setting private. We don’t want others to know how much cash you’ve got. We just want to help you find schools that match your finances.

Once you’ve created your profile, check out the MatchMe setup in your dashboard. Choose what kind of college you are into. From public and private to tuition costs, to city size and majors, you can select exactly what you are looking for.

When you search for colleges, you can match your search to your profile by the click of one button and…BOOM!—CampusCompare will find all the colleges that meet what you are looking for.

We the legwork out and do the homework for you. We show you what you are looking for, in one spot. Now all you gotta do is have fun in deciding which option to choose.

For instance, there are 72 schools that have majors in Zoology. But only one that’s a private, urban school—Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin.

So what are you waiting for. It’s your turn. Go find the school that will meet your match.

There are tons of websites that list the top schools and give you the college rankings to help you pick the best schools.

Well, we work a little differently at CampusCompare. OK. A lot differently. We don’t think that there is a one-size fits all solution when it comes to picking a college.

We think that there is more to college that good grades and prestige. You may not be right for a really academic program at an Ivy League school. Your calling might be a culinary school or a nursing program. And that doesn’t mean you are smarter or dumber than anyone else. Just different.

And what might be right for me, may not be right for you.

So this week, we are going to go beyond the college rankings and tell you all about the options available to you after high school. From junior and community colleges to vocational and career schools. We will tell you what’s out there. And we’ll even tell you about CampusCompare’s MatchMe feature that let’s you tell us what you are interested in and we’ll help you find colleges that match your interests.

It’s not about finding the best colleges. It’s about finding the best colleges for you!

Today, most colleges and schools all around the nation are racially integrated. In fact, last week a white valedictorian represented the graduating class of 2008 at Morehouse College, a historically Black college.

The face of education is changing. But these changes didn’t happen by accident. They came through the struggles and hard work of past generations.

So today we commemorate a woman who was a pioneer for anti-segregation.

Yesterday, Zelma Henderson, the last surviving plaintiff in the ”Brown v. Board of Education case” who fought to oulaw segregation at public schools in Topeka, Kansas died at 88.

According to the USA Today, “in 1950 Henderson signed onto the litigation on behalf of her children challenging Topeka’s segregated schools.”

Her children were forced to attend a school that was 10 blocks further away from their home than a whites-only school. She protested and believed that her children should know people from all different types of races.

Henderson and the other plaintiffs lost in U.S. District Court, but the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, along with similar cases from Virginia, South Carolina and Deleware. The high court’s unanimous ruling overturning segregation came on May 17, 1954.

Henderson paved the way for racially integrated schools across the nation. And therefore opened up a new kind of learning in schools. This type of learning doesn’t  come from the textbooks in the classroom. It comes through dialogue and discussion with people of all races. And it teaches us some pretty important lessons about tolerance, freedom and opportunity.  

Sometimes history lessons aren’t boring. They remind us how far we’ve come and the heroes who paved the way.

Photo by Anthony Bush (Journal/AP)