We are trying to add more “safety” and “match” school to my son’s college list and I remember there is a link where you could go and find information on the stats of admitted students so we can decide if he’s above or below middle 50%? Anyone can give me some information on how to best get to this information?
Google Common Data Set and look at section C.
Seconding going to each school’s website and looking at CDSs…there are no secondary source sites that will have up-to-date info. Even better if you can get most recent info for class of 2023 from the school’s website or the student newspaper (those CDSs won’t be out until the fall)
If your HS has Naviance software, that can be useful too - how kids from your own school did with what stats at what colleges.
This site also has CDS info but can lag sometimes:
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/
Some colleges have some information on their own web sites. For example,
- UIUC shows middle 50% ranges by division (but not by major) at https://admissions.illinois.edu/Apply/Freshman/profile .
- Iowa State publishes an automatic admission formula at https://www.admissions.iastate.edu/freshman/requirements.php .
- San Jose State University publishes past admission thresholds by major at http://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/impaction/ .
Most of the schools we’ve looked at post student profile pages that include this and other information in a compact format. I found I could usually get there by googling “x college student profile”. I also used a site called College Data that has details on admissions ranges, application requirements, student body diversity, etc. It is a useful way to do a quick check, but the information may not be as up-to-date as what is on the school site or the Common Data Set (although not all schools provide the Common Data). https://www.collegedata.com/en/
Thank you everyone for the very helpful tips.
We have an additional problem in the fact that my son is heading towards a CS major. Often, that major has much higher admission requirements than the general admission to that particular school, so finding admission requirements just for the university as a whole and even for “College of Science”, “college of engineering” etc., may not be enough. For his number one choice we learned those major related numbers from an admission counselor.
Do you all think it would be acceptable to email an admission counselor at a particular school and ask?
I think e-mailing them is fine. We e-mailed with many questions and most were just glad we were showing interest and thinking ahead.