How to find information on each college?

In this article, we've listed the best ways to find key information about US universities and colleges. In general, we recommend starting by reviewing the college's website and social media channels. While Reddit, Quora and College Confidential can also contain information about colleges, we recommend exercising caution with those as a lot of the responses on there can be based on anecdotal individual experiences that may not reflect the college experience in general.

Location

Look up the college on Google Maps to get a clear idea of the location and proximity to major cities. 

Ranking 

Unfortunately, the majority of popular ranking systems, including US News, QS, THE, and others, are embroiled in some degree of controversy due to their for-profit nature and evidence of manipulation. Additionally, a lot of ranking systems may overweight factors that do not matter to you (like data pertaining to doctoral and graduate students, students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and faculty that do not teach undergraduate courses) and not include factors that you may care about (like internship placements or undergraduate teaching quality).

Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (e.g. Liberal Arts Colleges, Dartmouth) are also unable to be listed on most rankings systems where postgraduate factors are heavily weighted (e.g. QS, US News National Rankings, THE, and Guardian).

Additionally, several very well-regarded universities and programs, including Rice University, Columbia, and Reed College, have stopped sharing data with rankings systems in recent years.

Our advice is to restrict how much you rely on rankings while formulating your list, and use the rankings for specific purposes:

- The ARWU Shanghai Ranking uses a methodology that ranks faculties for each subject purely based on the research output. While this will not give you a direct indication of teaching quality and is moderately biased in favour of larger institutions that need to have more faculty, it can tell you how much the university focuses on your areas of interest: ShanghaiRanking's Global Ranking of Academic Subjects

- Niche's Rankings (2024 College Rankings - Niche) weight academic rigor and reputation and student life nearly equally. This can be useful if you would like to look for colleges that provide a lot of extracurricular opportunities and have a happy student community.

Academic Intensity

While academic intensity will depend more on your choice of majors and minors rather than the college, certain universities are known for having more academic rigor. To get an accurate assessment, do speak to your mentor, but here are a few rule-of-thumb measures you can use:

• Public universities are usually very flexible about the course load (number of courses you can take per term or semester), so you can choose to take on as much or as little pressure as you would like.
• Colleges that follow quarter systems instead of semester systems usually tend to have a higher average academic workload (e.g. University of Chicago, Northwestern)
• Colleges that advertise very high rates of graduates being placed into PhD programs usually have more academic rigor, as well as more research opportunities (e.g. Harvey Mudd, CalTech, Reed College, Bowdoin College)
• Private universities with stellar reputations and high academic rankings but relatively lower financial endowments are often the most rigorous (e.g. Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, CalTech, Northwestern, Georgetown, Washington University in St Louis, Rice)

Additionally, you should review the curriculum structure for your intended major(s) at each college (i.e. What are the courses offered, how many are compulsory vs. elective, how many courses in total are needed to graduate, ease of doing additional majors and minors). This information is available on each college's website.

On-Campus Life

Good ways to find out about on-campus life are:

• Social Media: Many colleges have dedicated Instagram pages run by their admissions offices. These usually feature current students sharing their experiences and highlighting events happening on campus. Several also run active YouTube channels.
• Many colleges have directories of student clubs and societies on their websites.
• Sign up for the colleges' newsletters (links to sign up are usually available on their websites)
• If the colleges are organizing Virtual Information Sessions for high school students, you can attend them (these will usually start in April, after the admissions for Fall are complete)

Indicators that you will need to speak to your Mentors and Counsellors About:

- Class Sizes: Faculty-student ratios are usually misleading, since this can include faculty that do not teach undergraduate courses. Ask your mentor for an indication of 

- Placements for particular industries: While location can be a factor in placements, certain schools are 'feeder schools' for specific companies or sectors (e.g. NYU Stern for Finance, Maryland College Park and Purdue for Tech)