How does each college/university know where else its applicants have applied?
I think these lists are pretty good, but I agree with @ucbalumnus and would even like to see it go out to a second or third degree of separation. I think it would be helpful to see schools that are a range of selectivities in the overlap. Surely kids who apply to Vassar, or Brown or SMU or Vanderbilt also apply to kids with higher admissions rates.
My kid is definitely the Vassar, Wesleyan flavor above (and is currently dating someone who goes to Tufts!)…but is not applying to many of the other overlaps because who needs SO many highly selective reach schools? If we were just starting this process, it would be helpful to see schools like Sarah Lawrence and Bard (among others) listed as overlaps.
All of those colleges have thriving colleges of arts and sciences. All four also offer engineering, which is perhaps what you meant?
Many are surprised to learn that some of Duke’s strongest programs are in the humanities and social sciences. The National Research Council (NRC) ranks Duke’s classics, religion, and anthropology programs as top 5 programs, to pick a few examples.
I’m a little surprised to see ND not overlap with Michigan, since they’re about 2 hours apart, both with strong academics and athletics. My kid considered both very strongly before choosing Michogan. Even NU lists Michigan as an overlap.
When declining a college admission, it asks you to which college an applicant has committed to. I’m sure these colleges keep a database for such info.
If you look at Parchment (to compare school preference by admitted students) there’s list under each school. I suspect this list may be statistically more accurate than the one in Fiske. But who knows. Would be interesting to see how similar the lists are.
I got into your first link provided and typed the first school that came to my mind, Princeton, in its search box, to see what it considers its peers. The result says “0” while 32 other colleges see Princeton as their peer. Then, I typed Harvard. The result says it considers Princeton, Yale and Stanford as its peers. Yale, on the other hand, considers 10 colleges as its peers and likewise Stanford also with 10. Princeton’s “peerless”!! Thought it was really funny.
Some ask. Some used to use the list of colleges on the FAFSA before FAFSA hid that from the colleges. Applicants in the know about “level of interest” are/were careful about answering to avoid making the asking college look like a low choice.
This is like the Six Degrees From Kevin Bacon game. Can you connect every school to, say, Harvard in six steps? 
Well it comes up in every nearly every thread no matter the initial debate or topic. So it’s one degree on CC lol.
As I noted elsewhere, this sounds like they are for the “overall” college. I suspect those apply to CMU for CS will have a very different overlap list than those applying for Drama (which has a lower acceptance rate).
Interesting data, but use it appropriately.
I think overlap schools are useful for determining what universities seem to have a similar academic strength, institutional ethos, facilities and vibe for —- prospective students.
Not as exact replicas or perfect alternatives to each other.
This is based on a collection of narratives and opinions.
This is useful as a leveling agent of sorts for many families who are uninitiated with the process. And for those of us decades from our last real collegiate experience.
Especially students and families without the means to travel to each unique school or region.
The guide was never intended as a roadmap to validate our own choices - post enrollment.
Colleges usually survey afterwards their admits, and sometimes even all their applicants. Even though the surveys are anonymous, they’re obviously optional so many students probably choose not to respond or only selectively list some of the colleges they’ve applied to.
Son had his own overlap classification when composing his application list: “schools where it’s safe to be a thinker.” Otherwise, the locations, size, costs, programs differed a lot. UChicago, Reed, Williams, Carleton, UMich. Perhaps the decisive nonacademic factor – tie-breaker – in his final decision was that he wanted to attend college in “a major league city.” Of those schools, only Chicago qualified.
I just tried it, too. One school I chose named 11 peers, but was chosen as a peer by 54 colleges. There were 4 reciprocal peers.
I could play with this for a while tonight.
The website won’t work on my phone and unfortunately I have no computer. Seems fun though!
Based on that, reversing the graph edges (i.e. for a given college, what other colleges consider it a peer, rather than what other colleges it considers peers) will result in some noise due to some rather questionable aspirations (e.g. take a look at what any University of Phoenix campus considers to be its peers).
@Publisher and @ucbalumnus . . .
Doesn’t the National Clearinghouse have information which shows what colleges all the nation’s college-age eligibles chose? And wouldn’t this information be available to the colleges themselves (hopefully way after admissions season)? If this were the case, then I don’t think some of these lists are purely aspirational – there’s probably a reason for their referencing a supposedly higher-ranked college, e.g., SMU overlapping Vanderbilt, etc. I’m sure some of the former’s admits (though it’s a great college) chose to attend the latter.
About 11% of UCB admits chose UCLA in 2018 – it was a materially higher about three years before the referenced year, and about 12% of UCLA admits chose UCB. After this for both, it’s a who’s who of elite colleges, and a few, about a lower 1% each, who chose some of the other UCs.
University of Tulsa:
“Tulsa is a notch smaller than Texas Christian (TCU) and WashUStL, but bigger than many liberal arts colleges.” (Has about 3,200 undergraduates.)
Overlaps: SMU, TCU, Lehigh, Univ. of Richmond, Creighton, Rice, Univ. of Oklahoma, Saint Louis University.
“TU is a very academic school that recruits students who care about their grades.”
Rhodes College:
Overlaps: Sewanee-The Univ. of The South, Furman, Centre, Tulane, Trinity Univ. (Texas), WashUStL, Vanderbilt & Hendrix.
Strong Programs: Business, Biology, Psychology, Neuroscience, Economics, English, International Studies & History.
@Publisher I was surprised to see Rice as an overlap for University of Tulsa. They seem like very different schools. What are Rice’s overlaps?