How should you be using data to guide your decision-making as an applicant? What data points should you consider, which should you dismiss, and what nuances are important to remember?

Succeeding in college admissions today is truly a both-sides-of-the-brain endeavor, for applicants and for advisors. When preparing applications, you want to be a skilled, creative storyteller, but when formulating your college list and application strategy, you must channel your detail-oriented, quantitative side instead.

There is a lot of information out there to sort through. If you’re not steeped in admissions and are just looking to parse the data for your one shot at freshman admission, you might feel confused and overwhelmed. Here is some guidance on what to look for, how to understand it, and why it matters.

Admission Rates: Don’t pay attention to overall admission rates. Instead, focus on the admission rate for your application round, whether Early Decision (ED), Early Action (EA), or Regular Decision (RD). EA admission rates are not always provided, so in those cases, assume that EA admission rates are roughly comparable to RD admission rates. (More on EA here.) ED1 and ED2 admission rates are rarely broken out, so as a rule of thumb, assume that ED2 is more competitive than ED1. Use the admit rate for your round to help identify whether a school is a reach, target, or likely as in many cases, what could be a target for you in ED may be a reach in RD. (We are looking at you, Tulane, Northeastern, and BC, among many others!)

Matriculation Rate by Plan: Understanding the percentage of students who are entering the freshman class through ED, RD, and EA will give you a sense for a school’s emphasis on ED. The higher the percentage of the incoming class entering via ED, the more you can expect ED to benefit you (and for RD to negatively impact you). In general, we consider “high” to be 50%+ of the entering class coming in via ED.

Score Reporting Rates & Score Ranges: On the fence about whether to sit for the SAT/ACT again (hint: you probably should) or to send your score? Look at the middle 50th percentile for each section of the test for your schools of interest. As a general guideline, if you are:

above (or at the top end of) that range → always send;
below that range → never send (except where required);
in (or slightly below) that range → turn your attention to the school’s score reporting rate.

The reporting rate refers to the percentage of matriculating students who reported a score in the admission process. If a “test optional” school has a high percentage of students submitting a score (think 60%+), you should report a score.

Big picture, in today’s landscape, your bias should be that you should send a score unless the score you are reporting will hurt you more than applying test optional will. The reporting rate will give you a way to measure the latter. More on this in our related article.

Quality of Life: Some published data can help you assess whether a school is a good match for you. A few data points that you might find helpful are:

freshman retention rate: namely, how many students returned for their second year;
percentage of students living on campus: often provides a sense for the vibrancy of campus life;
major distribution: percentage of students in different schools and academic programs, which gives you insight into whether the school is oriented toward specific students/programs;
percentage of students in the Greek system: to help you gauge the prominence of Greek institutions on campus); and
at, public institutions, the percentage of in-state versus out-of-state students: to get a sense for geographic diversity.

So where to find all this data?

IPEDS (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System), a national data collection effort run by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
Common Data Sets (CDS), a standardized report used by U.S. colleges and universities with admission, enrollment, cost, and student life data for use by ranking publications and prospective students
Trusted data aggregators like College Kickstart and CollegeBoard’s Big Future, which rely on IPEDS, CDS, and institutional data.

The greatest challenge facing applicants today is the fact that the landscape is complicated and yet they generally have one shot to get it right. Those who succeed find the right balance between personal fit, risk tolerance, strategy, and pragmatism by trusting their sources, their instincts—and the data.

And, a postscript …

You might be wondering about some of the data points not listed above. The pieces of data that we regularly get asked about (and agree would be helpful to have!), but are largely unavailable include:

A breakdown of ED1 and ED2 admit rates.
Transparency about how special admits (students who are not directly admitted to a college for fall admission, but instead are offered deferred (1-year) or spring semester admission, admission to a first-year abroad program or a different campus, or a guaranteed transfer, etc.) are reflected in published admissions information.
A breakdown of admit rates across different schools and academic programs within a university.

Data Is Your Friend (... but it’s a more complicated friendship than you think)

How should you be using data to guide your decision-making as an applicant? What data points should you consider, which should you dismiss, and what nuances are important to remember?

Overwhelmed by the College Process? What to Prioritize When You Can’t “Do it All”

The Story Behind Plummeting Admissions Rates