College comparison template

[Anonymous]

Recommendation needed for a table to compare colleges for decision purposes, which site is most up to date?

[Anonymous]

I've been making one myself, using a combination of common data set info and answers to other questions gleaned from the websites of each of the schools under consideration.

Maybe there's an easier way and I just haven't found it. No doubt depends on how many schools you want to look at (in my case about a dozen) and what questions you want to answer (some of mine are major-specific).

The common data set has info re admissions (including wait list info), costs/FA, sports, course offerings, class size, student-faculty ratios, % of degrees in specific fields. And you can generally find it by googling school name and "common data set"

[Anonymous]

College confidential

[Anonymous]

Love that pp mentioned the The Common Data Set.

That was essential for us. When a school touts their engineering program, for example (or any program) you can look up the actual number of students who were granted a degree in that major - sometimes it's shockingly small.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Love that pp mentioned the The Common Data Set.

That was essential for us. When a school touts their engineering program, for example (or any program) you can look up the actual number of students who were granted a degree in that major - sometimes it's shockingly small.

Agree. This is the one single source of information I wish we had really used more. Naviance was useful to a point (not as useful private schools since the sample size is small) as were the Fiske Guide, College Confidential, USNWR (as a starting point) and the NYT's Choice blog (now defunct), but the Common Data Set has a ton of information. The Common Data Set looks at enrolled students not applicants. Since athletic recruits, URMs and legacy students can skew the stats, it shows what stats you really need to become a student at "X" if you don't have a hook.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been making one myself, using a combination of common data set info and answers to other questions gleaned from the websites of each of the schools under consideration.

Maybe there's an easier way and I just haven't found it. No doubt depends on how many schools you want to look at (in my case about a dozen) and what questions you want to answer (some of mine are major-specific).

The common data set has info re admissions (including wait list info), costs/FA, sports, course offerings, class size, student-faculty ratios, % of degrees in specific fields. And you can generally find it by googling school name and "common data set"

This is what I did on a sheet of paper back in the 80s. My prized Table of Colleges.