Need some help building your college list? The Common Data Set might be your new best friend! What's the Common Data Set? It's a document with statistics and valuable information on nearly every 4-year college and university in the US. It can also help you quickly answer common questions like:

What's the average ACT and SAT score of admitted students?
What's the acceptance rate for first-time, degree-seeking applicants?
What kind of financial aid does a particular college offer, and how much can I maybe get?

The best part: the Common Data Set for colleges is completely free to access! You just have to learn how to use it to your full advantage.

And guess what? That's exactly what we're going to show you how to do in this blog post! Let's get started with a bit more information about what the Common Data Set is, what it covers, and how it's used.

What is the Common Data Set?

The Common Data Set (CDS) is a collection of standardized questions about a college or university's admissions and financial aid process, graduation rate, student demographics, and more. The CDS is created annually by the College Board in partnership with several higher education associations and organizations, including the U.S. News & World Report.

Once you learn how to use it, the CDS can help you narrow down your college choices and know which colleges and universities are the best fit for you. It can also help you set goals for your high school education by showing you the average academic profile of students admitted to your dream colleges.

What do colleges cover in the Common Data Set?

Each college's Common Data Set is a document of 30+ pages that includes information organized in the following sections:

General Information: Basic information about the college, including its name, location, degrees offered
Enrollment & Persistence: Demographic information about the student body, number of degrees awarded, graduation rates, and student retention rates
First-Time, First-Year (Freshman) Admission: Information on the admissions requirements and academic profiles for the college’s first-year class, including SAT and ACT scores, GPA, the criteria admissions officers find most important when evaluating first-year applications, and more
Transfer Admission: Information on the admissions requirements and academic profiles for transfer students, including credits accepted from other institutions and GPA requirements
Academic Offerings & Policies: Information on the college's study options (e.g., distance learning, independent study, study abroad) and course subjects all students must take to be eligible for graduation
Student Life: Information on first-year students' life on campus, Greek life membership, student clubs, ROTC programs, and student housing
Annual Expenses: Information on the college's annual cost of tuition, required fees, room and board, and estimated personal expenses
Financial Aid: Information on what's required to apply for the school's financial aid and data on the financial aid options available to undergraduate students, including scholarships, grants, work-study, and loans
Instructional Faculty and Class Size: Information on class sizes, faculty demographics, and student-faculty ratios
Degrees Conferred: Information on the types of degrees offered and the number of students pursuing each field of study

How to use the Common Data Set when building a college list

So, how do you actually use the Common Data Set during the college application process? In this section, we'll look at an example to guide you along.

Let's start by imagining you're a high school student with the following profile:

Rising high school senior looking for 4-year colleges that offer a great engineering program and need-based financial aid to first-year students
Current GPA: 3.3/4.0
ACT Score: 28

Using the Common Data Set, you can start to create a list of colleges and universities that match your profile. Here's how:

Step 1

Search for the Common Data Set for colleges and universities in the northeast. You can do this by going to Google and typing in “[x school name] Common Data Set." So for example, just “Harvard Common Data Set” or “MIT Common Data Set.” We'll use the Common Data Set for NYU for the remaining steps of this example.

Step 2

Make sure the college offers an engineering program for undergraduate students by looking at the “Degrees Conferred” Section.

Step 3

Next, you'll go through the “Financial Aid” section to determine the average aid package for students who qualify for need-based financial aid. You may compare that number to the total cost of tuition listed in the “Annual Expenses” section. However, NYU’s most recent CDS doesn’t include information on the cost of tuition.

Step 4

Look at the “First-Time, First-Year (Freshman) Admission” section to see how your academic credentials stack up against the average admitted student.

Step 5

Familiarize yourself with what academic and non-academic factors the admissions committee values most when evaluating your application. (Different schools will place different importance on different factors.

Step 6

Use the information you've found to determine whether the school is still a good fit for you. If so, decide whether the school should go on your college list as a reach, maybe, or likely school. If you need clarification on what those terms mean, check out this article!

Going back to our example, NYU would definitely be a reach school if you have a 3.3 GPA and a score of 28 on the ACT. Why? Because the majority of students admitted during the last application cycle had a 3.71 GPA and ACT score between the range of 30-36.

Does that mean you would need to completely forget about applying to NYU? Not at all. But it does mean you can have realistic expectations and prepare yourself to work extra hard on the application.

A quick note on “Demonstrated Interest”

If you want to understand more about “Demonstrated Interest”, you can check out our guide, but the Common Data Set is the place to check whether a school tracks Demonstrated Interest. (And if it does, for sure check out that guide for ways to demonstrate your interest.)

Final thoughts

If you're starting your college search, the Common Data Set is a great place to start! It can provide you with valuable information about admissions rates, average test scores, financial aid, and more. It can also help you determine which schools best suit your academic background, helping you build a well-rounded college list.

For more tips on how to build your college list and stand out during the college admissions process, check out these additional resources:

Special thanks to Ameer for writing this blog post

Ameer is a freelance writer who specializes in writing about college admissions and career development. Prior to freelancing, Ameer worked for three years as a college admissions consultant at a Hong Kong-based education center, helping local high school students prepare and apply for top colleges and universities in the US. He has a B.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Chicago and an M.A. in Spanish Linguistics from UCLA. When he’s not working, Ameer loves traveling, weight lifting, writing, reading, and learning foreign languages. He currently lives in Bangkok, Thailand.

Top values: Growth / Diversity / Empathy