<p>I haven’t searched all the threads to see how often this comes up, but I have a short list of factual material I use to look at schools. I wonder what else people use.</p>
<li>The Common Data Set. Schools fill out a thing called the Common Data Set, which they often abbreviate CDS. State schools generally have it stashed somewhere on their sites because the government requires a bunch of reporting, but many schools hide it or abstract out a few data points. I know there are threads with links to the CDS for some schools, but these tend to change and thus break. I find most by googling and looking around. </li>
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<p>When you read a CDS you realize the guidebooks take this material and format it so it looks like they’ve done more work than they have. </p>
<p>My belief is that a kid should look at a school that “fits” him or her and which has the program he or she likes. The CDS gives a window into programs, noting retention, how many kids are in each major - which indicates importance in a school and resources allocated - and a bunch of other real info. Kids hear a lot of absolute crap about schools from the most dubious sources so it’s nice to be able to see actual facts. Schools brag about student / faculty ratios but you can often look at the actual numbers by department and thus by your interest.</p>
<p>State schools often have entire research lists that go into tremendous detail. Private schools have much less. A few schools just post the CDS.</p>
<li><p>ASEE. American Society for Engineering Education gathers material from almost all engineering departments - which now, of course, includes computers, biomedical, etc. If you go to asee.org and then to publications - the site is clearly organized by engineers (LOL) - and then to profiles, you can search for any program. Page through and you even get to how much money each program gets in external grant funding - government and corporate - broken down by department. So when a kid says, “I want to go into engineering,” you can look at how much research actually occurs at each school and then ask, “Well, what kind of engineering?” and look at which school gets money for that particular program. The differences are startling; schools get no money in some areas and tons in others so you can clearly see the strengths and research opportunities. Now when someone says, “But x is great for engineering!” you can say “But y gets 3x more research money and x doesn’t even get research money for z.”</p></li>
<li><p>Naviance. If your school doesn’t have naviance - meaning a college application / guidance site powered by naviance.com - beat on them to set it up. Seriously. It’s amazing. Naviance is a website that allows you to look at anonymous data for your high school’s applications and admissions to schools. You can see basic data like the average gpa and SAT’s for students admitted … and then you can see the real data, which is all the applications plotted on a scattergraph with admissions, deferrals, etc. all listed. I say real data because some of the results are shocking - and kind of disheartening for many.</p></li>
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