The Data and Calculations That Power Our Site

Data Sources

The data that powers our website is gathered from the following organizations and governmental agencies:

The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Calculations, Projections, and Estimates

The acceptance rates that are displayed on our site are calculated by taking the total number of applicants to each institution and dividing them by the number which were approved. In order to determine acceptance rate projections for the upcoming year, we applied a least squares regression line method to the trailing five years of data available. Although this method may differ from actual results we believe it provides users a general idea of where the acceptance rate for any one school may be in the coming application year.

GPA Estimates

Many schools do not have GPA requirements or publish the average high school GPA of incoming students. However, many students find this information helpful giving them an idea of which colleges to apply to. Therefore, we have developed a method which can give a range of average high school GPA scores for accepted students. This method involved collecting a sample of schools, our sample size was a 154 institutions, that have average GPA information on incoming students, along with other applicant data including standardized test scores and acceptance rate information, and by using this sample we are able to estimate high school GPA ranges for most schools. The GPA ranges are simply estimates and should only be used as such.

SAT and ACT Score Relationships and Concordance

Standardized test scores are a very important consideration for many schools when determining whether an applicant should be accepted. Therefore we have tried our best to gather as much standardized test score (SAT ^®, ACT ^®, ...) data as possible for approved applicants of each institution. However, some schools do not have this data readily available or have data on one test (e.g. SAT ^®) and not the other (e.g. ACT ^®). Although these test are different in the way they can demonstrate mastery of subject areas, the ACT organization has written about relating the two exams, on their page regarding concordance. We have also included the table below which gives users an idea of how to compare SAT and ACT scores.

ACT Composite Score	Estimated SAT CR+M+W	Estimated SAT CR+M+W (Score Range)	ACT Composite Score
36	2390	2380–2400	36
35	2330	2290–2370	35
34	2250	2220–2280	34
33	2180	2140–2210	33
32	2120	2080–2130	32
31	2060	2020–2070	31
30	2000	1980–2010	30
29	1940	1920–1970	29
28	1880	1860–1910	28
27	1820	1800–1850	27
26	1770	1740–1790	26
25	1710	1680–1730	25
24	1650	1620–1670	24
23	1590	1560–1610	23
22	1530	1510–1550	22
21	1470	1450–1500	21
20	1410	1390–1440	20
19	1350	1330–1380	19
18	1290	1270–1320	18
17	1230	1210–1260	17
16	1170	1140–1200	16
15	1100	1060–1130	15
14	1020	990–1050	14
13	950	910–980	13
12	870	820–900	12
11	780	750–810	11

Table taken from: http://www.act.org/aap/concordance/estimate.html