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.