<p>From my DD's college list, I've found only one school's link to its Common Data Set. Is there a CDS for every college out there, or most (reporting is voluntary, correct)? Should I just email each school to ask? We're missing nine CDSs. Thanks! </p>
<p>Google is your friend. Most are available but some schools do not publish their Common Data Set and you’ll have to piece things together from places like <a href=“College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics”>http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/</a>. They might also have the data under a title like Factbook.</p>
<p>Thanks. My Googling wasn’t turning up anything. Maybe search within each college’s website?</p>
<p>Here is a link that may help: <a href=“Links to the Common Data Sets Posted by Colleges - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums”>Links to the Common Data Sets Posted by Colleges - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums;
<p>Some of the information can be found in the college listings at <a href=“http://www.collegedata.com”>http://www.collegedata.com</a> , if the actual common data set is not released publicly by the college.</p>
<p>Google for “Common Data Set” + school name.
It should be as simple as that. If you get no hits, it probably means the school does not publish one.
Schools that don’t have a CDS may have similar information somewhere on their sites. Example:
<a href=“Fact Book - Institutional Research & Planning - Boston College”>http://www.bc.edu/publications/factbook/</a></p>
<p>Thanks. Only one school on her list had a Google-able CDS, apparently. That <a href=“http://www.collegedata.com”>http://www.collegedata.com</a> is turning up some more, however. If they’re all not there, I’ll search for similar info at each school’s site. BIG thanks, all!</p>
<p>Try ‘institutional research’ and name of school. That will take you to the page where the CDS should be. It may be called Fact Book instead.</p>
<p>Which specific sections of common data set information are you looking for?</p>
<p>Give us the names of the colleges and we can see what we can find</p>
<p>I did find them all in that <a href=“http://www.collegedata.com”>http://www.collegedata.com</a> site. It seems to have everything. I really liked that you can print out the full data set for any college as a PDF. I have to double-check how current (2013-14?) the sets are, but the site makes them very easy to work with. It’s a great site, as far as I can tell. It states it’s sponsored by 1st Financial Bank USA and that if you register (so you can save your searches), your data can be “shared.” Hmm. Not sure if that should be a concern. Maybe we’ll get student loan and student credit card mailings now? At any rate, the site is definitely useful — for example, you can compare schools. Thanks again!</p>
<p>Oh, at this point, I’m looking for everything in the CDS to use it as a profile. Beyond basic directory-type info (# of students, etc), I seem to be paying special attention to freshmen persistence; acceptance, enrollment, 4y graduation, grad school/job rates; racial/ethnic diversity; admission stats (GPA/SAT/ACT); “selection of students” factors (such as legacy, community service, GPA, etc.); class sizes (looking for small); housing; (absence of heavy) Greek life. Gosh. So much, really! </p>
<p>The CDS does not cover grad school/job rates (or other outcomes other than graduation rates).You have to tease it out from various sources. Payscale.com shows average starting and mid-career salaries. The National Science Foundation’s webCASPAR site has data on earned doctorates. Forbes/CCAP has compiled data on the baccalaureate origins of “American Leaders” to support the Forbes college rankings. </p>
<p>The CDS also has little to say about housing or Greek life (other than identifying the housing types available, including fraternity/sorority housing, in section F4.) The USNWR site has information about housing and Greek life in the “Student Life” section for each school.</p>
<p>CDS section F1 does ask the percentage of students in fraternities and sororities, although not all schools with fraternities and sororities answer that question. The answers are replicated under the Campus Life tab in the school’s entry at <a href=“http://www.collegedata.com”>http://www.collegedata.com</a> .</p>
<p>The college entries at <a href=“http://www.collegedata.com”>http://www.collegedata.com</a> include a substantial subset of CDS information, but some is not present. For example, section D (transfer admissions) is not replicated, while the numbers or percentages of various majors in section J are not replicated.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus - Thanks, that’s good to know. / @tk21769 - I could be mis-remembering, but I do think I saw fields for percent of students moving on to grad school within 6 months of graduation, as well as something similar for jobs in the field of major. I think most colleges do a post-graduation survey to collect this info, but who knows how many responders they get from the grads. </p>
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<p>Unfortunately, most schools do not make post-graduation survey results public, and those that do have variations in survey and reporting methodology that require caution when comparing between schools.
<a href=“University Graduate Career Surveys - #69 by ucbalumnus - Career Opportunities & Internships - College Confidential Forums”>University Graduate Career Surveys - #69 by ucbalumnus - Career Opportunities & Internships - College Confidential Forums;