I’m currently a high school senior, and I just started looking for colleges (which i know is extremely late) and I’m having some trouble finding information about colleges.
I know about college board, but i don’t really like the way their college search website is set up because it gives you a limited amount of information and then the link to the school’s website.
I found a website called colleges.niche.com but I don’t know how reliable it is.
Basically, I’m asking for any website apart from us weekly and college board that helped you when you were searching for colleges that can provide me with SAT and ACT scores and basic requirements for the school.
Thank you :)))))
I liked college niche - easy to use, reliable school facts. Just keep in mind that the opinion area where “students” can comment is just that, opinions.
but my question is if that website is reliable and the facts are correct?
Cappex is a favorite of mine
Your starting point should be to join College Compass on the US News rankings website. The data will all be current and accurate through the 2013-14 application season. Their rankings are based on their formula which many will dispute, but they at least give you a good ballpark. Niche is more opinion/survey based, but is reflective of what students think of their own institution and is very valuable. If someone has a problem, you will see it reflected in the schools ratings and you will see the pros and cons of each school very clearly. Used in conjunction with US News it is terrific. CollegeData.com is fantastic for drilling down into self-reported info on applications, and their factual summaries are very detailed.
If you can ignore the unfair title, you can flick through Business Insider’s “610 Smartest Colleges” (available online) for a quick picture of how colleges compare by SAT/ACT scores.
Did you use the search function here on CC?
Once you identify colleges, Google " Common Data Set" to find a lot of detail from each college in score ranges, financial aid, etc.
Agree with intparent. When you first look at a Common Data Set it is kind of an ugly Excel file format but the CDS has the most in-depth information publicly available. Not every college releases their CDS to the public but once you have a workable short list of colleges check out their CDS. It will tell you the percentage of students awarded both financial and merit aid and the value. It will tell you what percentage of students graduate in 4, 5, or 6 years. A wealth of information on class size and student demographics. You do need to be careful about how current information is in terms of both test scores and admit rates. Selectivity at some colleges has increased quite a bit in the last 3 years or so and older data might not show this - Kenyon is one example. Parchment.com is a good resource for figuring out where you stand relative to other students, kind of like Naviance with a nationwide student population
Most websites and books are at least a year out of date, and they’re often older than that. College websites are always the best place to look for the most recent and accurate information (look for “class profile” on admissions websites). Selectivity and application requirements can change quickly these days.
College Board draws its data from the CDS and is fairly reliable, though it’s usually a year or two behind. IPEDS is the other good search engine.
I found Niche and Cappex to be pretty accurate with facts and data.
college navigator is a great place for statistics-- tuition, institutional aid, etc.
http://www.collegedata.com has a significant subset (but not all) of the information in common data sets, which may be useful if a school does not publish its common data set.
I second @warblersrule on both the college website and IPEDS suggestions. I would also add that googling “name of college institutional research” can often give you access to a larger amount of data than is found in the Common Data Set, IPEDS, or US News College Compass.
I use College Board, Niche, & Cappex.
Favorite: collegedata.com for the Common Data Set info (school profile). So, I second the mention above.
Ditto collegedata.com as having the most and easiest to get to info. It’s also very easy to move between and compare some basic stats for colleges. I do NOT trust their net price calculator, but everything else feeds directly from the Common Data Set.
You are on the site I found most useful for college questions right now, so start a thread here with what you’re looking for if you haven’t already.
Beyond that i found http://www.collegedata.com/ to be the most useful.
Ditto.