Ready to Launch: Five Apps Every College Student Should Have on Their Phone
Let's talk money, safety, and digital privacy
As I noted in my last post, my son’s college search is over, which means it’s time to sunset all my lists and spreadsheets related to applications, scholarships, and financial aid. This also means that it’s time to start a whole new set of lists (yay! my list loving heart rejoices) of all the things I want to do to help make sure my son is ready to roll when he leaves for college in about 100 days.
(but who’s counting?)(I’m FINE, this is all fine!)
Since I’m 100% sure that I’m not the only parent who is both thinking a lot about how to help her kid transition to college AND who loves to use a list to self-soothe, I’m kicking off a new series called Ready to Launch. For the next few weeks, I’ll be posting about practical tips, things to buy (and things to skip), conversations to have, and other ways to help prep a new high school graduate to transition into college life.
I can’t promise that I can make any teenagers (including my own) actually listen to all the wise advice I might be giving here, but at least you’ll be able to say you tried, right?
For this week’s Ready to Launch, I want to highlight five apps that I think nearly all college students should have on their phone. Please note that there are never any sponsored posts/ads/or other “pay for play” content here… just my own recommendations as a parent and someone who has spent WAY more time on a college campus than the average person!
Before we go into the app suggestions, I’ll preface this by saying that this would be a good time to have a conversation about digital privacy and phone security with your kid. Before he leaves for college, I’m planning to spend some time with my son to make sure we’ve cleaned up any apps he doesn’t need, that he has set his socials to private, and that he’s made sure he’s got as many of the phone privacy and security settings on his phone activated as he can. My son has a late birthday, so he hasn’t turned 18 yet, so I’m going to hold off on doing his digital clean up until after his birthday so we can also remove some of the parental controls that have been in place for the last few years.
Once we’ve done that, I’m going to make sure he has these apps on it:
Uber/Lyft: Although my son will be taking our ancient Subaru (the unofficial, official state car of Minnesota) to his fairly rural college, I still want to make sure he has a ride sharing app set up on his phone in case that car is ever broken down or he (or a friend) is in a situation where they can’t safely drive themselves. College students don’t always make the smartest decisions about drinking but we want to make it a little easier to make the safer decision about driving. Pro-tip: If your kid is going away to school, especially if they are going somewhere more rural or small town, ask some of the current students at new student orientation or move-in day which ride share service is more frequently used there. They may also be able to tell you if the college operates its own ride share service and if there is an app for that.
Campus safety app: Many campuses will offer a free campus safety app for their students, which you can find by Googling “school name campus safety app”. These apps are designed to send out alerts if there is a safety incident on campus, if there is a campus closure or delayed start due to weather (probably the #1 use of these apps in Minnesota, honestly), or if there is any other kind of urgent news students need to know. They should make sure to allow for notifications when they install the app, because that’s the whole point! Some apps will also have additional safety features, like one touch calls to campus security or ways to request walking escorts for students leaving the library or an evening class after dark.
YNAB (You Need a Budget): One of the adulting skills my son will need to master in college is how to manage his money. Although he’s had a job since he turned 14, we’ve decided he’s not going to work during his first semester (which is also soccer season so he is going to be BUSY), so he’ll be living off his savings for a few months at least. I want to give him a way to track his spending so he doesn’t burn through his savings before mid-terms, so we’re going to set him up with YNAB which offers a year of free service to college students. There are other money tracking apps out there too, so it doesn’t have to be YNAB, but something to track spending and available resources is a good idea.
Better Sleep or Calm: The college years can be ROUGH when it comes to sleep: noisy residence halls, roommates who might not be on the same sleep schedule, late night study sessions or all nighters that leave your brain whirling… it can be tough to turn their brains off and get decent sleep. I’m adding an app like Better Sleep (which I use when I travel because hotel sleep also sucks) or Calm that has options for white noise, sleep meditations, and other sounds that can also be good background noise for studying. I haven’t really explore them in-depth yet, but I do note that Calm has some content specifically for college students and Better Sleep offers a discounted plan for college students.
Audible and Libby: While he isn’t likely to find most of his textbooks on either service, these apps can be great for finding audiobook or ebook options for some of the selections for literature, English, and even some history classes. I’m going to encourage him to check Libby first when he gets his book lists and see if he can find some of his books to borrow. Audible is also an option for audiobooks because he sometimes finds it helpful to both listen and read a book when he knows he’ll be tested on it.
I’ll also throw in a bonus app: Brick. I use my Brick when I need to focus and when I want to force myself to have a break from my phone. This would have been super helpful to me when I was in grad school but I’m not sure that I’ll actually get one for my son. I FOR SURE think it would be useful, but I’m really not sure if he would use it, so it didn’t quite make the cut.
Feel free to drop in the comments if there are other apps you think are great for college students, though please no generative AI ones like ChatGPT or Claude, because I remain a dedicated AI hater.