CC's New College Search - Beta Version

<p>Needs Squash. Also, you should be able to select multiple sports.</p>

<p>It’s cool. I just wish the sports had a Division 1, 2, or 3 option especially since that is one of my most important categories.</p>

<p>Overall pretty decent.</p>

<p>One thing I would add is a category for diversity.
Some people may prefer schools with lots of hispanics, for example, or lots of asians, or lots of internationals. Or just an overall diverse school.
Some may not.</p>

<p>Overall, awesome tool.</p>

<p>I was very impressed with this search engine.</p>

<p>This worked pretty well when I put in the spex and preferences of my son. It even came up with UChicago as #2 on the list – which is the college he actually did attend. And all of the others were plausible for him, including 3 others that he actually applied to.</p>

<p>But the search engine didn’t work at all well for my daughter, who had much more specific interests, namely a BFA in art & design. First there wasn’t any way to specify BFA as a criterion. Second, none of the stand-alone art schools popped up on the list (RISD, Pratt, MICA, etc.). Nor did more “comprehensive” colleges that have strong BFA programs (CMU, Cincinnati, etc.). In the case of CMU, I know for a fact that the SAT/GPA criteria are substantially lower for students in the fine arts college than those in engineering or business; I suspect that you may be screening out potential artists who don’t have the SAT’s of the computer engineering geeks. (In fact my daughter had very good but not tip top grades and SAT’s, and she got into CMU along with several top art schools, and ended up attending RISD.)</p>

<p>There are some lists of BFA-providing colleges and universities that could be incorporated into your search engine. For example, the National Portfolio Day Assn, which lists specific majors by their member schools: [National</a> Portfolio Day - Majors and Concentrations](<a href=“http://www.portfolioday.net/content/view/24/38/]National”>http://www.portfolioday.net/content/view/24/38/) . Also see the American Independent College of Art and Design (AICAD): [AICAD</a> - A Directory of Leading Art & Design Schools](<a href=“http://aicad.org/]AICAD”>http://aicad.org/)</p>

<p>In general, I think this new college search feature will be quite useful but less so to students with specialized interests in art, design, music, or some other subjects.</p>

<p>I think it is a good search engine, but maybe when choosing the size of the school it would be more accurate to either create choices with smaller ranges or allow the searcher to type in a range? It seems like there is a pretty big difference between a school with 7,000 kids and a school with 2,000 kids.</p>

<p>I used it for my daughter, and it came up with something approaching her actual list, though it gave schools from outside her geographic limits, even though I said that geography was a must have.</p>

<p>This is pretty impressive! It matched me with all my “choice” schools. Good job, CC! :P</p>

<p>I’d already picked my school, so I did this just out of curiosity, and it gave me 1 100% match, which was the college I’ll attend. 4 out of the next 5 were in my top 5 when I chose. So, I’m impressed.</p>

<p>Did this out of curiosity for S2. All seven of the privates to which he applied showed up in the top 40. His top two choices were #5 and #11 on the list.</p>

<p>I had no problem picking two options for school size, but agree with other comments that if this is for UG, it should be the undergrad size on the checklist.</p>

<p>You might want to make it clear that this does not calculate one’s odds of admission, just the degree of match of each school to one’s selected criteria.</p>

<p>Did a good job for my son - actual ED was on the first page - and others were plausible.</p>

<p>A “no frats” option would really help</p>

<p>add sport: Ultimate Frisbee.</p>

<p>Also extracurriculars - e.g. theater, radio station, etc.</p>

<p>Diversity question.</p>

<p>Also would be fun to include a “vibe” - arty, preppy, quirky, etc. - maybe not possible.</p>

<p>and maybe classify as reach, match or safety</p>

<p>I’d also like to see a ‘reverse’ function. Like, I could type in a college and see how much of a good match it is.</p>

<p>But I really like it. =)</p>

<p>I second firesoul17’ s suggestion–a reverse function would be great!</p>

<p>This was very, very accurate! It had eight of the schools that I applied to on the list of good match colleges for me, and the school that I am ultimately attending next year (USC) was like number five on the list (1. Duke was too expensive, got rejected from 2. Cornell and 3. Stanford, and didn’t apply to 4. Princeton) so it all ended up working out quite well.</p>

<p>This is a great college search tool! Great job!</p>

<p>I always wanted to use the beta version when possible, really nice that it’s now open after testing etc… I did partly use the engine and although I will be attending my dream school according to the engine my school did not rank high ( surprising), as oppose to other schools that I couldn’t possibly see myself attending so in response I can’t recommed the search tool to others searching for a dream school. Very interesting and well presented/ layout forumula. Nice how simple it is to get search results.</p>

<p>This is pretty good, but I still prefer the collegepr0wler system…it even gives you chances, although that means absolute nothing lol</p>

<p>Wow, I wish we had it last year,so I wouldn’t go frantic to search for a private school to apply to.</p>

<p>Nice system. 3 of the schools my son is looking at were in the top 5. Two comments:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>As someone mentioned above it would be nice to be able to print the resulting list of schools. Not with all the details, just a basic list.</p></li>
<li><p>Some of the suggestions were super reachy for my son. I plugged in a GPA of 3.4 and Rice and Vanderbilt were included in his list.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>I agree that a reverse function would be valuable.</p>