Today we’re letting everyone in on a sneak-preview of our latest tool: the college cross-admit preference tool. We think it’s a simple but powerful way to see which colleges are most favored by admitted college students.
To use it is simple: type in the names of two colleges that you want to compare (perhaps Florida and Florida State?). You’ll then see which fraction of site members prefers which school. Preference is determined by the relative fraction of members admitted to both schools who end up attending one or the other. For example, if 25% of students admitted to both College A and College B ultimately go to College B, we say they prefer College B over College A. When the results are statistically significant at the 95% level, you’ll see the results lit up in bright colors.
For the hardcore college admissions followers out there, this will remind you of this graphic from a 2006 NY Times article. One difference is that our list isn’t limited to 17 schools; as the data continues to become available, we’ll display this information for all 1700 schools that we track.
Requests? Feedback? Suggestions? Let us know.
Tags: college, confidence interval, decision, florida, florida state, preference, statistics, university
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Interesting site, but much advertisments on him. Shall read as subscription, rss.
Where a student attends requires a tuition payment. Many Ivy League colleges encourage students to apply regardless of ability to pay, should state up front their ‘no exception’ policy. Financial aid policies towards students from divorced families or with only one accessible parent at your top 15 ranked colleges differ dramatically from what is printed on their websites. In my recent, very limited experience as a parent, only Princeton will evaluate the financial needs of an applicant from a divorced family or that of an applicant with only one involved parent. All of the other financial aid representatives told us to apply for admission and to apply for a NonCustodial Parent Waiver with our request supported by several letters from third, unrelated parties documenting facts – the NCP is an absent, uncooperative parent. After hundreds of hours of work to complete the waiver request, several insitutions, except Princeton, wriote a letter stating ‘Sorry, our institution’s policy is that both parents must contribute to the cost of your college education, and your waiver request has been denied. Furthermore, this prevents us from awarding you financial aid.” How does a student force a parent to cooperate? In California, a student is an adult at 18 with legal rulings that the parent is no longer responsible for paying for anything after age 18. A parent MAY keep their full-time college student on their health insurance policy. Our laws do not require any cooperation. My point: top ranked schools should clearly state that if the parent is alive don’t apply unless you have a contract that they’ll pay their Expected Family Contribution: EFC. In California there is no mechanism to force payment of an EFC. I wonder how the thousands of other students resolve this complication … am I to assume forego going to a 4 year outside of California’s boundaries. In Califonia only the custodial parent is expected to contribute towards college expenses. Where can I learn more about financial aid to students from divorced parents?