About the data
CampusMatch has two tools: Discovery builds a balanced application list from 1,400+ U.S. colleges, and Decision ranks the schools you're choosing between. Both score colleges against your stated preferences using federal and public data for objective measures, and AI-generated estimates for qualitative attributes that have no official dataset. This page explains exactly where each data point comes from and where the tools fall short.
Cost is scored on what you'd actually pay, not the sticker. CampusMatch estimates each school's real net price for your family's income band — and in Decision you can enter your actual financial-aid offers per school, so the ranking reflects your true out-of-pocket cost. It's not an aid-letter negotiation service; it folds your real numbers into your overall fit score, side by side with academics, career outcomes, and campus life.
Data sources
All objective signals come from federal government and public scientific data sources. Nothing is sourced from paid rankings, affiliate relationships, or school-submitted marketing materials.
College Scorecard
U.S. Dept. of Education- —Admission rate
- —Graduation & retention rates
- —Net cost by family income bracket (5 brackets)
- —Median earnings 10 years post-graduation
- —Median student debt at graduation
- —Per-major earnings and completers (field-of-study data)
IPEDS
National Center for Education Statistics- —Undergraduate enrollment
- —Campus setting (city / suburban / town / rural)
- —Student demographics
- —Student-to-faculty ratio
- —Instructional expenditure per student
- —Religious affiliation
Carnegie Classification
American Council on Education (via IPEDS)- —Research activity level — R1 (very high), R2 (high), R3, or other
Clery Act Reports
U.S. Dept. of Education- —Campus crime rates per 1,000 students (used to compute safety score)
Historical Weather
Open-Meteo · ERA5 reanalysis- —Warmest-month average high & coldest-month average low
- —Average annual temperature
- —Sunny days per year
- —Snow days per year
U.S. Census
U.S. Census Bureau- —Metropolitan Statistical Area population (input to location quality score)
Weather data is provided by Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0), derived from ERA5 reanalysis (Copernicus Climate Change Service / ECMWF). All other sources are U.S. federal government datasets.
AI estimates
Ten qualitative attributes — party scene, dorm quality, political climate, and others — have no authoritative federal dataset. For these, CampusMatch uses AI-generated estimates on a 1–5 scale, generated via a structured prompt that cites public reputation, student reviews, and verifiable inputs (e.g., Greek participation rates, NCAA division, known campus culture).
Fields most likely to be contested or cause harm if wrong — party scene, Greek life, and political climate — receive a full human review of every school. Other fields are reviewed via stratified sampling (20 schools per field, across small, medium, large, and elite size buckets). Any outlier flagged during sampling triggers a full review of that field.
In your results, AI estimates are labeled with an AI est. tag, and each includes a one-sentence rationale explaining the basis for the rating.
| Field | Human review |
|---|---|
| Party scene | Full — every school individually reviewed |
| Greek life prominence | Full — every school individually reviewed |
| Political climate | Full — every school individually reviewed |
| Academic workload | Sampled — 20 schools per field, stratified by size |
| Dining quality | Sampled |
| Dorm quality | Sampled |
| Facilities & resources | Sampled |
| Campus beauty | Sampled |
| Natural scenery | Sampled |
| Athletics culture | Sampled |
How scoring works
CampusMatch scores each school across six categories: Academic, Social, Campus, Location, Career, and Financial. Each category is composed of individual signals drawn from the data sources above.
The survey's questions set your personal weights — how much each category and sub-preference matters to you. Those weights determine your final fit score. A school that's an academic powerhouse but in a city you don't want to live in will score differently for you than for someone who doesn't care about location at all.
Scoring is absolute, not relative. Your fit score for a school reflects how well it matches your preferences on its own — it doesn't change based on which other schools you happen to be comparing. A school with a 78 fit score has that score regardless of whether you're comparing it to two other schools or ten.
Each signal in your results displays a source tag so you can see exactly what data is driving each part of your score.
Known limitations
We believe you should know where this tool falls short before you rely on it.
Earnings data lags approximately 5 years
College Scorecard earnings figures are based on graduates from cohorts who enrolled roughly a decade ago. They are the best available federal data but do not reflect current market conditions. This applies to both general earnings and per-major earnings.
Campus safety data varies in quality
Clery Act reporting is mandatory, but schools differ in how rigorously they classify and count incidents. Some under-report; some are stricter in their definitions. Safety scores are honest relative indicators, not precise absolute comparisons.
Carnegie Classification updates every ~3 years
Carnegie data may not reflect very recent reclassifications. The vintage of the data is noted in each signal's source rationale in your results.
Pricing & unlocks
The core results — every school's overall fit score, the full ranking, and where each school lands nationally — are free.
A one-time payment unlocks a single report in full — $30 for your first unlock, $15 for each one after (packs bring that down further): the complete signal-by-signal breakdown behind each score, head-to-head compare, the priority simulator, and a saved report to keep. A report covers the set of schools you entered (up to five), and you can keep adjusting your priorities on those same schools as much as you like — that stays part of the report you unlocked.
Building a report for a different set of schools creates a new report, which is a separate unlock. There's no subscription and no recurring charge.
Contact
Real people read these — reach out anytime and we'll get back to you.
Disclaimers
CampusMatch is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any college, university, or educational organization.
Fit scores are personalized estimates based on the preferences you enter and the data sources described on this page. They are not admissions predictions, official rankings, or guarantees of any outcome. Use them as one input in your college decision — not the only one.
Data is updated periodically but may not reflect the most recent information published by each source. For the most current information about a specific school, consult that school directly or the relevant federal database.
Survey responses are stored securely and used only to compute your fit scores. CampusMatch does not sell or share individual survey data.
Some questions ask about sensitive attributes — your racial/ethnic background, religious preference, political leaning, household income range, and ZIP code. Each is used purely to compute the matching feature it belongs to (campus representation, religious affiliation, political climate, income-adjusted cost, and distance from home). Race, ethnicity, and religious denomination are optional — you can pick “prefer not to say” and still get a full score. We never sell this data or use it for anything beyond your results.