<p>I’m already in college but I did this for amusement… My actual college was number 3, most of the colleges I applied to were on the first pages (none of the reaches showed up…) but the number one choice was something I absolutely would not even consider… I think you should be able to filter out military academies (it matched because I selected no partying and public, and yeah, that’s a match but not personality wise!) if you choose public becaseu many people aren’t interested in going to those… (It’s also a difficult application process, much more arduous than the norm)…</p>
<p>Top 3 of my daughter’s list were on the first page…
also, would like some time of “reality check” though; a couple of the ones on that first page were also mega-reaches (completely out of the ballpark range)…</p>
<p>For CC regulars, probably just a “confirmation” that they are on the right track…</p>
<p>For noobies, needs a little tweaking…unless one thinks that a 3.0GPA kid should be applying to Princeton…</p>
<p>REALLY like it ! Especially ability to choose how important each option is.</p>
<p>Most of my Ds tops were listed (and she has <em>very</em> specific criteria). One tippy-top was not listed (even far down in the percentages). I agree that it would be nice to type in the school and see why it wasn’t a fit.</p>
<p>agree with these other comments too:
conservative leaning option
sports - choose multiple and for club/intramural options
<p>The grad school aspect doesn’t really make sense in terms of the drop down list. Home economics but not economics? construction trades? I’m not sure where the drop down list comes from but none of the fields I would have tested out to see how valid it is were available from the list, and these are not obscure fields by any stretch.</p>
<p>I enjoy the fact that a tool like this is available at CC. The College Board or Peterson’s tools are complicated, boring, and feedback is difficult. This one solves all those problems.</p>
<p>It fails my oldest, but then again, my oldest is mainly going after a niche major (Community/Economic/International/Global Development - not even the colleges that offer it can agree on what to call it!). The only way I can get his #1 choice college to come up is to search for it by religious affiliation. Considering we aren’t that particular denomination, we’d have never found the school with this search (or many others). That school calls the major “Community Development” so I suppose the search calling it, “International Development” messes it up. One school he applied to (3rd choice) that called it ID did show up - 2nd on the list - but it ended up being his 3rd choice school.</p>
<p>Speaking of religious affiliation, how about a broad category of “All Protestant” or “All Catholic” instead of having to pick just one?</p>
<p>I love the ability to also choose how important each criterion is. That’s something that I feel most of the other search engines lack. Thanks!</p>
<p>Also, I agree with the people saying that the search does run a bit on the side of “reachy” - I was surprised at some of the schools I got, even after putting in my test scores. However, if you want to use the search engine to look for safeties/matches, be sure to go to the Scores section and check the box that says "I’m interested in schools where I would be well above average, to increase my financial aid opportunities. "</p>
<p>Suddenly, you get a list of schools where admission is a lot more likely and merit scholarships are a possibility. This is super handy, as most people know about the reach schools already; it’s finding good match schools that fit your criteria that’s more difficult.</p>
<p>Great comments and feedback, thanks for taking the time to share, everyone! Our development team reads all of this and definitely takes your suggestions and other comments into account.</p>
<p>A little too simplistic. Schools show up that are clearly not matches and schools that do not offer the identified major(s) often are high on the list. I would think that a school that doesn’t offer a selected major, especially when identified as very important, would be eliminated.</p>
<p>Having said that, better than the College Board thing which is absolute crap.</p>
<p>Six of the schools I’m applying to appeared in the top 10! (and Princeton is my #1 choice!) Not too bad! Though Emory didn’t pop up after I checked “kinda” for liberal, party scene, LGBT-friendly, great college town, and religious affliation: “none.” Hmm, maybe this is so accurate that I should reconsider it as my second choice?</p>
<p>I also find that I have 100% for virtually every category other than “scores,” so I wonder about the validity of the order of top 20 schools in terms of compatibility.</p>
<p>EDIT: For instance, when I drop the ACT score down to 34 it says I’m 100% match with but Yale, putting it at #1; however, when I put it back at 36 (or even 35 for kicks), Yale drops to #5, with WashU above it… ??? Seems like that needs a bit of tweaking…</p>
<p>Glad to see that changes were implemented in the assessment and weight of standardized test scores. I did a quick search (several of the sections I have no preference) and it produced a pretty accurate list of schools I’m interested in.</p>
<p>Sorry for posting twice, but I just realized that something is screwy with the scores setting… apparently, when I fix my SAT score from 2270 to 2360, I become 2% less of a match for Yale.</p>
<p>@Jersey
Assuming those changes weren’t made within seven minutes of my post, I’m going to say it still needs a small amount of tweaking. The system is pretty accurate though.</p>