The college student of 2021 has everything they need in the palm of their hands – literally. With more than 2 million apps on the App Store and Google Play Store, there are apps out there for all purposes. This includes tens of thousands of apps for college, like study apps, time-management apps, and budgeting apps.
Between signing up for classes and sorting out dorm (or remote learning) arrangements, why not spend a couple hours downloading useful apps? Spending time on your phone might seem counterintuitive as you prepare for the new academic year, but choosing the right apps can really improve your college experience.
No one wants hundreds of apps clogging up their phone’s performance, so we carefully selected only the 10 best apps for students. We deliberately chose apps that serve a variety of purposes. Below, you’ll find student planner apps, study apps, note-taking apps, and apps that help you manage your money. All these apps for college have free and premium versions.
With iStudiez Pro, you’ll never forget about an assignment or lecture. Just input your classes, locations, instructor information, holidays, and grades. Then, let the app notify you when you need to be somewhere or doing something. Tasks can be easily edited using the quick access button.
What makes iStudiez Pro the best planner app for students is that it syncs seamlessly with other calendar apps, such as Google Calendar. It also syncs across all your mobile and desktop devices in seconds.
In the old days, students would jot down their best ideas on a notepad – then misplace it somewhere, never to be found. With EverNote, you can create typed, handwritten, or audio-recorded notes and access them across synced devices. Whenever you need to access a note, just search for it by title, date, content type, or keyword.
EverNote is the best notes app for iPhone, iPad, and Android, but note-taking isn’t all it does. Other features include: Web Clipper, which lets you save web pages, articles, and PDFs; Search Handwriting, which helps you find keywords in handwritten notes, photos of white boards, and Post-It notes; and Document Scanning, which puts all your important documents in one place.
Thanks to Grammarly, you’ll never again have to worry about having your grades deducted because of spelling mistakes. The free version corrects your grammar, spelling and punctuation. The premium version gives you Grammarly’s AI-powered writing assistant, making your papers more concise, readable, and engaging.
Grammarly works wherever you work – from MS Word to Google Docs to email. Grammarly recently released a full-feature app and keyboard for iOS and Android, giving you the option of working on your essays from your phone or tablet.
Ask any college student to name the most time-consuming aspect of essay writing, and they will probably say compiling citations. EasyBib solves this problem by automatically creating a list of citations for you. Just enter a book title to get the right citation.
The free version of EasyBib offers citations in MLA format. The premium version includes APA, Chicago, and 7,000 other styles. It also checks for plagiarism errors against billions of sources, provides 200+ types of grammar suggestions, and includes custom expert feedback on up to 15 papers per month.
Some techniques never get old, like using flashcards for studying. Brainscape is a flashcard app for the twenty-first century. The browser-based app lets you easily create flashcards, share with friends, and sync between all your mobile devices so you can study on the go.
Brainscape’s developers have put a lot of effort into the features. For example, you can easily add images, animations and sounds to your flashcards. You can transform text using bold, italics, bullets, numbered lists, and other HTML tweaks. And you can collaborate and compare your performance with friends and other students around the world.
The folks over at Wolfram|Alpha weren’t exaggerating when they called their app ‘the ultimate tool for homework and research’. Just type in a question, and Wolfram|Alpha’s computational knowledge engine will compute the answer from externally sourced data. The app started out serving math and physics students, and now covers a range of other subjects such as chemistry, biology, engineering, economics, and statistics.
The Pro version for students spells out how it computed the answer, making it great for learning how to solve challenging problems. It also includes the Wolfram Problem Generator, with an infinite supply of instantly graded practice problems and worksheets.
Between the cost of tuition, housing, books, and just having fun, college can quickly make you broke. Mint is one of the best personal finance apps on the Apple and Google Play stores. It lets you see all your accounts in one place and gives personalized recommendations based on your spending habits.
Mint is completely free, and it’s perfect for preparing your finances for life after college. It gives you unlimited access to your credit score, with tips to help improve your credit. It sends you payment reminders when bills are due. And it notifies you when you’re running low on funds.
Venmo connects your phone to your bank account or debit card, letting you pay back friends without having to carry around cash. Venmo lets you pay classmates with Venmo accounts using just a phone number or email. You can even find friends automatically by syncing your phone or Facebook contacts.
It might sound complicated, but Venmo is (mostly) free. When you send money using your Venmo balance, bank account, debit card, or prepaid card, there are no fees. The only time you pay is when you use a credit card, in which case Venmo applies a standard 3% charge.
Let’s be honest: we all procrastinate from time to time. By downloading the SelfControl app, you can block websites that distract you from studying. The block can be applied indefinitely or for a pre-set amount of time. Facebook distracting you from your lecture? No problem, just set the timer to one hour or however long you need.
SelfControl is only available for Macs, but there are plenty of other useful (albeit less functional) apps for PC and smartphone. Free website-blocker apps for iOS and Android include: Liberate, Zero Willpower, and BlockSite.
College can be a wonderful but stressful time. Fortunately, there are plenty of proven techniques for freeing your mind from clutter and anxiety – and one of the most popular these days is mindfulness.
Headspace is a guided meditation and mindfulness app with a massive library of themed courses. Whether you need mediation for studying, cooking, or commuting, Headspace has it. The app also includes sleep sounds and bedtime exercises, which is helpful for getting a good night’s rest before a big exam.
