Help & FAQ
Getting the most out of your college list
Short answers to the most common questions. Still stuck? Use the feedback link in the app.
What is this app?
A data-first tool for building and tracking an undergraduate college list. It pulls together public, official data (the federal College Scorecard and IPEDS, plus the Common Data Set) so you can search schools, sort them into Safety / Target / Reach, save a list, and track every application's deadlines and requirements in one place.
How are Safety, Target, and Reach decided?
Eligible schools (those passing your non-score filters) are placed relative to your academic profile. Turn on the GPA / SAT / ACT sliders to position schools: stronger scores push a school toward Safety, lower scores toward Reach. The classifier uses the better of your SAT/ACT signal, never labels a school "Safety" without a known admit rate, and keeps Ultra-selective (admit rate ≤ ~10%) and Not enough data as separate sets.
These are advisory positioning signals, not guarantees — admissions are holistic.
What does the data-quality rating (1–10) mean?
Every school shows a Data quality badge from 1 to 10 that reflects how complete and verified our data is for that school — it does not rate the school itself. Higher means more fields are filled in from more sources. Three tiers:
- Enriched — one of the ~250 curated schools with a full research dossier (deadlines, platforms, per-program detail) on top of the federal data.
- Standard — federal Scorecard data plus Common Data Set facts.
- Basic — federal Scorecard coverage only (the intentionally thin long tail of the catalog).
We keep every school in the catalog and simply show its rating, rather than hiding the thinner ones. Hover the badge to see which sources are covered.
How accurate are the deadlines and requirements?
Treat them as pre-fill, never authoritative. Deadlines, platforms, fees, and requirement checklists are a starting point you can edit per school. Always confirm the specifics on the school's official admissions site before you rely on them.
What is the AI Advisor, and what data does it use?
The advisor bar answers natural-language questions about colleges, your saved list, and your applications. It is grounded in this app's data through read-only tools, so it doesn't invent admit rates, deadlines, or costs. Your question text is sent to our language-model provider to generate the answer; don't include sensitive personal information in your questions.
How is my data handled?
You sign in with Google, and your saved list and application tracking are stored privately under your account. We don't sell your data. See the Privacy Notice for the details, including how to export or delete your data.