The Data and Calculations That Power Our Site

Data Sources

The data that powers our website is gathered from the following organizations and governmental agencies:

• The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)
• National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
• Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Calculations, Projections, and Estimates

The acceptance rates that are displayed on our site are calculated by taking the total number of applicants to each institution and dividing them by the number which was approved. In order to determine acceptance rate projections for the upcoming year, we applied the least-squares regression line method to the trailing five years of data available. Although this method may differ from actual results we believe it provides users a general idea of where the acceptance rate for any one school may be in the coming application year.

GPA Estimates

Many schools do not have GPA requirements or publish the average high school GPA of incoming students. However, many students find this information helpful in giving them an idea of which colleges to apply to. Therefore, we have developed a method that can give a range of average high school GPA scores for accepted students. This method involved collecting a sample of schools, our sample size was 154 institutions, that have average GPA information on incoming students, along with other applicant data including standardized test scores and acceptance rate information, and by using this sample we are able to estimate high school GPA ranges for most schools. The GPA ranges are simply estimates and should only be used as such.

SAT and ACT Score Relationships and Concordance

Standardized test scores are a very important consideration for many schools when determining whether an applicant should be accepted. Therefore we have tried our best to gather as much standardized test score (SAT ^®, ACT ^®, ...) data as possible for approved applicants of each institution. However, some schools do not have this data readily available or have data on one test (e.g. SAT ^®) and not the other (e.g. ACT ^®). Although these tests are different in the way they can demonstrate mastery of subject areas, the ACT organization has written about relating the two exams, on their page regarding concordance. We have also included the table below which gives users an idea of how to compare SAT and ACT scores.

Table is taken from: https://www.act.org/content/act/en/products-and-services/the-act/scores/act-sat-concordance.html