Recipes

Worked examples of what you can do with the archive. Each recipe pairs a short write-up with an interactive artifact seeded from hand-verified data, and a copy-pasteable API query you can use to scale it to the full corpus. If you want to contribute one, PRs welcome.

Acceptance rate vs. yield

CDS C1, B1, B22

Scatter plot of how selective a school looks on paper (acceptance rate) against how selective it actually is in practice (yield). Four quadrants with teeth: selective-and-desired, loved-despite-openness, selective-but-second-choice, accessible-and-optional.

For: Students and parents building a target list; counselors calibrating reach/match/safety.

Open demo →Read write-upXLSX starter

Test-optional tracker

CDS C8, C9

Line chart of SAT submission percentage over time for seven well-documented schools (Yale 2009–2024, Caltech 2002–2020, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Harvard, Wake Forest). Uses the submission rate as an honest proxy for effective test-optional policy — written disclosures lie, enrollment numbers don't.

For: Students deciding whether a school's “test-optional” is real; reporters tracking the post-COVID reversion.

Open demo →Read write-up

Ideas we haven't built yet

  • Net-price-by-income-bracket (H2A, H4) — the single most-asked question in college search.
  • Realistic/reach/safety calibration from the published C9/C11 distributions.
  • Recruited athlete × program strength (Section F × Section J).
  • “Has this school changed?” — longitudinal view of one school's selectivity, yield, and aid generosity over 5+ years.

Want to build one of these? See the recipes guide.

Looking for the data directly? Head to the public API or browse every school in the directory.