I thought this site sounded like a great way to compare the cost of colleges and get a real world estimate of merit scholarships,grants,etc. I carefully reviewed their breakdown of several schools and compared it to the information found directly on the school websites. Unfortunately there were substantial discrepancies on almost every comparison. Great concept but without a greater degree of accuracy it is disappointingly unhelpful. Anyone else had a similar experience with Raptor?
yes, the data at this site seemed inconsistent and stale.
To be fair, I found the same issue with many other college review sites as well. Generally, they use numerical data to generate a multitude of lists, rankings etc, but without much check on the accuracy and quality of numbers used. Not even including issues such as some criteria cannot be digitized or are not made available publicly, especially when it comes to financial/merit aid.
I have had great luck with everything on College Raptor except costs. For cost of attendance and net price I go directly to the college websites. I can run through a NPC in a few minutes, and I always save a copy each time I run one.