DIY College Rankings
http://diycollegerankings.com/person...nking-example/
Every ambitious high school student getting ready to apply to college knows about the US News College Rankings. And probably every parent of an ambitious high school student knows the flaws of the rankings–or at least they should.
So now it’s all about “fit.” There are plenty of books to educate you on the importance of fit, probably not as many on how to write the perfect college essay, but close. It is also pretty easy to find a website that allows you to select from a list of college characteristics and generate a matching list of colleges.
And since it’s all about “fit,” many of these sites include comments or ratings by actual students attending the college!
You can find a partial list of such sites in the table below. When you visit them, one thing to notice about them is how many of the selection criteria are the same. That’s because they are getting most of their data from the same place, the Integrate Postsecondary Education Data System which is run by the US government. The government provides the College Navigator which allows you to search for colleges much like other college search sites.
However, like other sites, it is limited in that it you have to choose from their possible answers. Let’s use student body size as an example. The various size categories used by five different college search websites follows:
College Board:no preference/< 2,000/2,000-15,000/> 15,0000
CollegeData:no preference/Less than 2,500/2,500-4,999/5,000-9,999/10,000-16,999/17,000-24,999/25,000+
College Navigator:100/200/300/500/700/1,000/2,000/3,000/5,000/7,000/10,000/20,000/30,000
College Search:<2,001/2,001-13,000/7,001-13,000/13,001-20,000/>20,000
Princeton Review:Less than 5,000/5,000 to 9,999/10,000-14,999/> 15,000
The College Board classifies over 2,000 institutions into just three groups. I’m sure plenty of people would find a college of 2,500 undergraduates vastly different from one with 14,500. The College Navigator site provides the most flexibility since you can select a range based on the categories it provides. So you could select schools with populations from 3,000 to 5,000 or 3,000 to 10,000. But you’re still stuck with their categories, 3,000, 5,000 or 10,000-2,500 is not an option.
This issue happens with admissions, Greek participation, race/ethnicity, college test scores, students living on campus, cost of attendance, and many other factors. Then there are categories that are available at some websites but not others such as disability services, out of state students, and student/faculty ratios.
Depending on what characteristics you’re looking for, you might end up visiting multiple search sites to generate a list of colleges and ultimately still not have all of the information you’re looking for.
However, why shouldn’t you? pick your own characteristics and values to search on? The College Results website by the Education Trust doesn’t bother with categories, you get to enter actual numbers for your search (where appropriate.) Depending on your priorities, you can export the results into a spreadsheet to form the basis of your custom college ranking.
http://diycollegerankings.com/person...nking-example/
Every ambitious high school student getting ready to apply to college knows about the US News College Rankings. And probably every parent of an ambitious high school student knows the flaws of the rankings–or at least they should.
So now it’s all about “fit.” There are plenty of books to educate you on the importance of fit, probably not as many on how to write the perfect college essay, but close. It is also pretty easy to find a website that allows you to select from a list of college characteristics and generate a matching list of colleges.
And since it’s all about “fit,” many of these sites include comments or ratings by actual students attending the college!
You can find a partial list of such sites in the table below. When you visit them, one thing to notice about them is how many of the selection criteria are the same. That’s because they are getting most of their data from the same place, the Integrate Postsecondary Education Data System which is run by the US government. The government provides the College Navigator which allows you to search for colleges much like other college search sites.
However, like other sites, it is limited in that it you have to choose from their possible answers. Let’s use student body size as an example. The various size categories used by five different college search websites follows:
College Board:no preference/< 2,000/2,000-15,000/> 15,0000
CollegeData:no preference/Less than 2,500/2,500-4,999/5,000-9,999/10,000-16,999/17,000-24,999/25,000+
College Navigator:100/200/300/500/700/1,000/2,000/3,000/5,000/7,000/10,000/20,000/30,000
College Search:<2,001/2,001-13,000/7,001-13,000/13,001-20,000/>20,000
Princeton Review:Less than 5,000/5,000 to 9,999/10,000-14,999/> 15,000
The College Board classifies over 2,000 institutions into just three groups. I’m sure plenty of people would find a college of 2,500 undergraduates vastly different from one with 14,500. The College Navigator site provides the most flexibility since you can select a range based on the categories it provides. So you could select schools with populations from 3,000 to 5,000 or 3,000 to 10,000. But you’re still stuck with their categories, 3,000, 5,000 or 10,000-2,500 is not an option.
This issue happens with admissions, Greek participation, race/ethnicity, college test scores, students living on campus, cost of attendance, and many other factors. Then there are categories that are available at some websites but not others such as disability services, out of state students, and student/faculty ratios.
Depending on what characteristics you’re looking for, you might end up visiting multiple search sites to generate a list of colleges and ultimately still not have all of the information you’re looking for.
However, why shouldn’t you? pick your own characteristics and values to search on? The College Results website by the Education Trust doesn’t bother with categories, you get to enter actual numbers for your search (where appropriate.) Depending on your priorities, you can export the results into a spreadsheet to form the basis of your custom college ranking.
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