Methodology

This page explains where our numbers come from, how we record them, and what the labels mean.

Where each piece comes from

What you see	Source	Label
Acceptance rate, SAT middle 50%, size, graduation, retention, tuition averages	U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard	Official
Who the students are (race and ethnicity, gender, part-time, Pell grant share, first-generation share)	College Scorecard	Official
Fields of study (share of degrees awarded) and room and board	College Scorecard	Official
English test requirements (TOEFL, IELTS, Duolingo, PTE)	The school’s own admissions page. Entries are read from the page by us, with the page link and the date. For specifics, visit the school’s page	From the school’s page
How each school weighs grades, class rank and average GPA of its enrolled class	The school’s own Common Data Set (section C). Entries are read from the file by us; values that contradicted themselves were left out	From the school’s page
Where your grade stands in your national cohort	Published distributions: Korean 석차등급 cut-offs, IB May 2025 statistics, KMK Abitur statistics, French DEPP baccalauréat results, UAC definition of the ATAR, CEEC 學測 2025 statistics, HKEAA DSE 2025 results	Official statistics, derived
Cost and aid policy for international students	The school’s own official pages, read by us	From the school’s page
Founding year	Wikidata, matched to each school by its IPEDS ID. Shown only when Wikidata gives one clear year for one item; otherwise left out. Anyone can edit Wikidata, so we do not check it ourselves	Community-edited
Campus photos	Wikimedia Commons, free licenses. Author and license are printed under each photo	Credited

Scorecard statistics are republished as released. Where a figure fails a basic sanity check (for example, shares that do not add up to roughly 100%), we hide it instead of showing it.

What the student and field numbers mean

• Student makeup describes the whole student body. It says nothing about how many international students are admitted, or how well a school treats them.
• Fields of study are the share of degrees awarded in each field, for the latest year Scorecard reports. A large share means many students graduate in that field. It is not a ranking and not a measure of how good the program is.
• We list the largest fields. The rest are combined into “All other fields.”
• Room and board is the school’s own estimate reported to the Department of Education, on or off campus. It is a budget figure, not a bill.

How “My fit” works

“My fit” is a transparent comparison with simple rules. It is not an admission prediction, and it runs entirely in your browser: what you type stays on your device.

1. Placement. With a SAT score, we compare it with each school’s published middle 50% range. Below the range is Reach, inside is Target, above is Likely. A school that admits 15% or fewer of all applicants moves up one step (Target becomes Reach, Likely becomes Target), because it is a stretch for almost everyone. Without a SAT score, or if the school does not publish a range, we place the school by its acceptance rate: 15% or less is Reach, up to 50% is Target, above that is Likely. Schools with neither number are left out, and we say how many.
2. Budget and aid. If you set a budget, schools whose verified cost (or, failing that, tuition and fees alone) is over it are hidden. If you say you need aid, schools that offer no need-based aid to international students are hidden. If a school’s cost or aid policy is not in our list of compared figures, we keep the school visible rather than guess.
3. Intended major. We map the major you type to one or more Scorecard fields. Within each group, schools with a larger share of degrees in that field are listed first. This changes only the order, never Reach, Target or Likely. You can also show only schools where that field is 8% or more of degrees. If we cannot map your major, we say so and do not use it.
4. English test. If you enter an English score and we have the school’s figure, we compare them. We only call a score “below the minimum” when the school’s page states that figure as a minimum. Scores the school calls recommended, or reports as typical, are shown as references and never as pass or fail. We do not convert between different tests (for example IELTS to TOEFL). The one exception is TOEFL iBT: when a school lists only the 0–120 score, we convert it to the 1–6 score with the official ETS conversion table (the school did not publish that figure itself, and the page shows it the same way). We do not convert when the school’s own notes already mention the new scale. A converted score is never used to say you are below a minimum. A school below your score is moved down within its group; it is not removed, because you can retake the test.
5. Region, setting and the like. These are filters you choose. They remove schools; they never change a school’s placement.

Grades: what we can and cannot compare

Your school record is one of the most heavily weighted parts of an application at most selective schools. We do not turn it into a U.S. GPA, because there is no official conversion. Instead we do two things and show both:

1. Where you stand. If you enter a class rank, we use it. Otherwise, for grading systems where an official or authoritative distribution is published, we estimate your standing from it: Korean 내신 (the legal 석차등급 cut-offs), IB Diploma points, the German Abitur average, the French baccalauréat mention, the Australian ATAR, India’s CBSE Class XII (only for actual marks of 90% or more, because CBSE publishes just the 90% and 95% cut-offs), and per-subject results for Taiwan’s 學測 and Hong Kong’s DSE (among that subject’s test takers; we do not average subjects). For other grading systems we say we cannot place you.
2. What the school reports. Many schools publish in their Common Data Set how much of their enrolled first-year class was in the top tenth of their high school class, how much they weigh grades, and their average GPA. We show these on the school page and on your match cards, and compare them with your standing.

This comparison is a rough guide, not a score. The groups are different: your rank may be among classmates, among all exam takers or among your age group, and the school’s figure describes students who enrolled, many of whom did not report a rank. It never changes Reach, Target or Likely; a school where your standing is clearly below its enrolled class is only listed lower within its group, and the card says why.

What “My fit” cannot see

• Essays, recommendations and activities. They cannot be scored from outside, and schools publish no activity data. We use activity types and keywords only to suggest fields you might look at.
• Grading systems without a published distribution. For these (for example the Chinese gaokao and Japanese 評定平均) we show your grades and say that we could not place you. Add a class rank if you know it.

Every card shows the reasons behind its placement, with the source of each reason, and the results page has a “How we used your profile” box listing what was and was not used. We are adding more grading systems and more schools as we can source them reliably.

Two kinds of data, two ways to record them

Statistics for every school come from Scorecard as described above. Cost and aid policy for international students are not in Scorecard, so we read them on each school’s own official pages and record them ourselves, one school at a time.

How we record a figure from a school’s page

• We open the school’s own page and save its link and the date we read it.
• We record only what the page explicitly says. If the page does not say, we write “Not stated on the school’s page.”
• We never fill a gap with a guess or an estimate presented as a fact.
• When a school publishes a cost for non-resident students rather than for international students specifically, we say so on the page.

Labels

Label	Meaning
Official	From U.S. Department of Education data.
From the school’s page	Taken from the school’s own page and shown with the page link and the date. Some of these figures were compared by hand with the page and others were read automatically, so they may be summarized or out of date; for specific figures, visit the school’s page. Only the figures compared by hand are used to hide schools from your matches or to filter and compare schools by cost or aid.
Wikidata	Community-edited. Anyone can change it.

Why we do not show “average cost” as your price

Scorecard averages include U.S. students and the aid they receive. An international student can pay far more. We show those averages only as clearly labeled reference figures, and we show the school’s own published figure whenever we have it.

Photos

Photos come from Wikimedia Commons and are matched to schools through Wikidata. Some schools have no free-licensed campus photo, and they show initials instead. A photo is decoration; it is not a statement about a school’s quality or size. If a photo is wrong, tell us on the Corrections page.

Currency

Dollar figures are shown first. Where a Korean won amount appears, it uses a reference exchange rate that you can edit on the page. It is not a quote.

Coverage today

1,718 schools have official statistics. 234 schools have an aid policy and 208 have an international or non-resident cost that we compared by hand with the school’s page. A further 93 aid policies and 111 costs were taken from schools’ own pages and are shown the same way; they never replace a figure compared by hand, and they are not used to hide schools from your matches. 230 schools have an English requirement and 46 have grade data read from their own pages. Many schools are not yet covered.

Updates

School policies and costs change every year. We aim to re-read each school every admission cycle, and every page shows the date each figure was recorded.

Found a mistake?

Tell us on the Corrections page. We read the school’s page again, fix the figure, and note the date.

Limits

This site is for information only. It is not admissions, immigration or financial advice. Confirm every figure with the school before you decide.