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"Filling out scholarship forms is easier when you don't have to write your basic information over and over again. \"Personal for Education\" is a web and mobile app that lets you store all of your basic information and populate online applications, making the process faster.  \nPersonal.com can store and share all kinds of personal information \u2014 your birth certificate, passport, passwords, driver's license number and more. This new offering simplifies the college scholarship and financial-aid application process by saving students valuable time.\nPersonal, along with a small number of private companies, promised to help students and future students make use of their college information \u2014 from details about classes you've taken to federal financial aid (FAFSA) information. \nAlmost a year ago, the government announced the \"My Data Button\" initiative. On the government website, users would click a button to access all their student information. Now, the MyDataButton plan has been scratched, but students can still access their records and import them into Personal.\nHere's how: First, users must request their personal information from the National Student Loan Database System website (the link is also available when you log into Personal). Once they receive that information, they can log into Personal and import the data. From there you can populate any form quickly with that information and avoid tedious typing. \n\nSEE ALSO: Find Scholarships for College, Student Loans With These Websites \nShane Green, Personal CEO and co-founder, uses the story of a college student named Alfredo. In a video, Alfredo explains his busy schedule \u2014 work, class, an internship plus school. Filling out numerous FAFSA and scholarship forms takes up much needed time. With Personal's data platform, he's able to upload his education data (downloaded from the Department of Education), and can insert it into numerous online forms by clicking the Personal button, which automatically populates all the correct fields. Another video shows the steps Alfredo takes to do this (this is a helpful how-to).  \nThe service is free to use. The mobile apps are also free and available for iOS [iTunes link] and Android devices. \nThe other two private companies utilizing this release of data are Microsoft and a company called Parchment. Microsoft mimicked its HealthVault site to create the Lifelong Learning Record (LLR), a cloud-based storage solution for your personal education data. This is more for parents or students who want to keep a private, online record of their accomplishments. This could be used instead of putting poems and pictures in a box in the closet, or storing important achievements that can be used when applying for jobs. \nParchment allows students to build a digital record of their transcripts and achievements, and share those with colleges or employers. Students can see their chances of admission at various colleges once they upload their data. \nDo you think Personal for Education would allow you to apply for more scholarships or save time? Tell us in the comments. \nPhoto courtesy of iStockphoto, DNY59"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/01/08/personal-for-education/>