Where to gather information to create your college list
Given that acceptance rates have plummeted at so many highly selective colleges once seen as “right fit” or even “safe” schools, applicants need to throw out any pre-conceived ideas about which schools they think makes sense for them on the college list.
To begin, you need to know about the universe of colleges out there before you can identify the ones that would be a “stretch” for you, the “right fit” ones that would match your academic performance and activity and the “safety” schools that you would be very confident of getting into because you more than meet what they are looking for in their applicants.
Your quest to find colleges should be systematic and objective.
According to the US Department of Education, there are more than 4,000 colleges in the country, some are public, some are private non-profit, some are private for profit universities, some are 2 year colleges and some are 4 year colleges. You need to whittle down these numbers to a manageable one using credible sources that have parsed them for quality.
While you may have heard about some colleges from friends or family and even know people who attended them, you must expand your knowledge about colleges beyond what you already know. The landscape for college admissions has changed dramatically since your parents and people in their generation went to college, it has changed from even when your older cousin started college in 2010. All of their collective knowledge is dated, and you need to start afresh.
Before you set your heart on a college, and build your dreams around attending it, make sure that it is a match with who you are, and that you have a reasonable chance of being admitted.
Let’s start with figuring out which are your most reliable sources of information for colleges.
Start your college search as early as possible
We strongly recommend that you initiate your college search in sophomore year and no later than the start of junior year in high school. Your preliminary college list will be a large one, which you will need to rationalize with more thorough research.
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The best guides for your college search
College Board
The College Board website provides FREE academic data like GPA, test score ranges and class rank for almost all colleges in the country and their system allows you to search by college name, location, major, type and campus life. The campus life search is filtered by size of the college, so if you want to attend a small college, the College Board enables you to find them with a mouse click.
The College Board does not rank the colleges, and the only indication you get about the quality of the college is from academic data and acceptance rates.
The College Board also lists the most important factors evaluated by each college in the admissions process.
Princeton Review
The Princeton Review website provides a free search function that will help you develop your preliminary list of colleges. The website enables you to search for colleges by name, location and major. They provide basic information on demographics and academic statistics plus descriptions of campus life from students.
The website also features 387 colleges that Princeton Review has identified as the top in the country based on metrics like academics and administration, demographics, extracurriculars, quality of life and town life. Princeton does not rank these colleges and the colleges are presented in an alphabetized list.
You can also buy Princeton Review’s guide book The Best 387 Colleges. The 2023 version The Best 388 Colleges will be available for sale in August.
Fiske Guide to Colleges 2023
The Fiske Guide to Colleges 2023 covers more than 320 plus of the best colleges in the country, and is one of the most informative guides available today. It gives robust descriptions of academic and social life as well as descriptions of what makes each of the college’s unique. The inclusion of student opinions of the colleges provide a needed perspective on the colleges.
Princeton Review Best 388 Colleges 2023
The Best 388 Colleges guide provides excellent introductory information for each of the colleges included in the guide, and has been described as organized and straightforward. The 2023 guide will be available for sale in August 2022.
Note: X Factor Admissions earns a small fee when you purchase the Fiske Guide and Princeton Review Guides on Amazon through our links.
US News College Rankings
US News ranks about 1,500 colleges, all of which are accredited educational institutions. The rankings provide some affirmation that the colleges on the list are of credible quality. However, we recommend that your decisions for your college list should not be based only on a college’s ranking from US News.
The basic rankings are free to access, but if you want to get to the details, you have to be a subscriber. US News ranks colleges by categories - National Universities, National Liberal Arts Colleges, Regional Universities, Regional Colleges, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
The website has a powerful search function that allows you to search for colleges using several different metrics including by location, major and factors evaluated in the admissions process. Subscribers also get access to basic data on the availability and amounts financial aid for each of these colleges.
College Websites
Once you have a first draft of your college list, it is time to take a closer look at each college with a visit to their individual websites. Even without a physical visit, the college website will reveal something about the college’s personality.
As a result of the Covid19 pandemic, colleges have all set up virtual tours to substitute for on-campus tours that had to be suspended.
College Visits
While college visits are the best way to get a good grasp of college culture and personality, what college life will be like and who the students are, it is a method that does not scale very well and can get expensive very quickly if the visits involve air travel.
If you are going to visit colleges, you should do so when classes are in session so you can observe the dynamics of college life first hand.
Many students only make their college visits after they have been accepted and are doing their admitted students tour to help them decide which offer to accept.
If your motivation for a college visit is to demonstrate your strong interest in the college, there are other effective ways to do this, including signing up for the college’s brochure and newsletter, and communicating directly by email or phone with the college admissions team at the college.
CHECK OUT THE COLLEGE SELECTION SECTION
Academic Statistics for the 61 Highly Selective Colleges Class of 2025
The table below compiles data for the 61 highly selective colleges on acceptance rates, GPA, SAT/ACT test score ranges and class rank.
The data was compiled from Common Data Sets and College websites. We use “ND” to indicate that GPA is not disclosed by the college.
| Academic Statistics of 61 Highly Selective Colleges | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Class of 2025 | |||||||
| College | 2026 Acceptance Rate | 2025 Acceptance Rate | Average GPA | Middle 50% Range SAT Score | Middle 50% Range ACT Score | Class Rank Top 10% | Class Rank Top 25% |
| Amherst College | 7% | 8% | ND | 1440-1540 | 32-34 | 91% | 99% |
| Babson College | - | 25% | ND | 1400-1500 | 31-34 | - | - |
| Barnard College | 8% | 9% | ND | 1445-1530 | 30-33 | 89% | 98% |
| Bates College | 13% | 15% | ND | 1290-1440 | 30-34 | 60% | 82% |
| Boston College | 16% | 19% | ND | 1430-1510 | 33-34 | 79% | 94% |
| Boston University | 14% | 18% | 3.8 | 1390-1490 | 31-34 | 75% | 99% |
| Bowdoin College | 9% | 9% | ND | 1330-1510 | 31-34 | 80% | 96% |
| Brown University | 5% | 6% | ND | 1470-1550 | 33-35 | 91% | 98% |
| California Institute of Technology | - | 4% | ND | 1530-1580 | 35-36 | 91% | 100% |
| Carleton College | - | 17% | ND | 1440-1530 | 31-35 | 69% | 93% |
| Carnegie Mellon University | - | 14% | 3.89 | 1480-1560 | 33-35 | 89% | 100% |
| Claremont McKenna College | - | 11% | ND | 1440-1500 | 32-35 | 61% | 96% |
| Colby College | 7% | 8% | ND | 1380-1520 | 31-34 | 74% | 89% |
| Colgate University | 12% | 17% | 3.77 | 1360-1490 | 31-34 | 77% | 93% |
| Colorado College | 12% | 14% | 3.98 | 1265-1450 | 29-33 | 71% | 93% |
| Columbia University | 4% | 4% | 4.12 | 1510-1560 | 34-35 | 95% | 99% |
| Cornell University | - | 9% | ND | 1450-1540 | 33-35 | 84% | 97% |
| Dartmouth College | 6% | 6% | ND | 1440-1560 | 32-35 | 95% | 99% |
| Davidson College | 17% | 18% | 3.81 | 1340-1480 | 30-33 | 74% | 97% |
| Duke University | 6% | 6% | 3.94 | 1510-1560 | 34-36 | 95% | 98% |
| Emory University | 16% | 20% | 3.81 | 1430-1530 | 32-34 | 76% | 95% |
| Georgetown University | 12% | 12% | ND | 1380-1530 | 32-35 | 85% | 97% |
| Georgia Institute of Technology | 17% | 18% | 4.1 | 1370-1520 | 31-35 | 91% | 98% |
| Grinnell College | - | 11% | ND | 1370-1530 | 30-34 | 72% | 94% |
| Hamilton College | 12% | 14% | ND | 1440-1520 | 33-35 | 80% | 99% |
| Harvard University | 3% | 3% | 4.2 | 1480-1580 | 33-36 | 93% | 99% |
| Harvey Mudd College | 13% | 10% | ND | 1470-1540 | 34-36 | - | - |
| Haverford College | - | 18% | ND | 1440-1520 | 33-35 | 95% | 98% |
| John Hopkins University | 6% | 6% | 3.92 | 1480-1550 | 33-35 | 98% | 100% |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 4% | 4% | 4.17 | 1510-1580 | 34-36 | 97% | 100% |
| Middlebury College | 15% | 13% | ND | 1400-1520 | 32-34 | 80% | 98% |
| Northeastern University | 7% | 18% | ND | 1440-1530 | 33-35 | 71% | 93% |
| Northwestern University | 7% | 7% | ND | 1490-1550 | 33-35 | 95% | 99% |
| New York University | 12% | 13% | 3.71 | 1350-1530 | 31-35 | 82% | 100% |
| Pitzer College | 18% | 18% | 3.93 | 1407-1500 | 31-33 | 69% | 90% |
| Pomona College | 6% | 7% | ND | 1480-1550 | 33-35 | 93% | 100% |
| Princeton University | - | 4% | 3.93 | 1470-1560 | 33-35 | 89% | 96% |
| Rice University | 9% | 9% | ND | 1470-1570 | 34-35 | 92% | 97% |
| Stanford University | - | 4% | 3.96 | 1470-1560 | 34-35 | 96% | 100% |
| Swathmore College | 7% | 8% | ND | 1440-1540 | 33-35 | 90% | 99% |
| Tufts University | 9% | 11% | ND | 1450-1530 | 33-35 | 82% | 97% |
| Tulane University | 8% | 10% | 3.64 | 1380-1490 | 30-33 | 54% | 80% |
| University of California Berkeley | 12% | 15% | 3.87 | 1310-1530 | 30-35 | - | - |
| University of California Los Angeles | - | 11% | 3.92 | 1300-1530 | 29-35 | - | - |
| University of Michigan | - | 20% | 3.88 | 1360-1530 | 31-35 | 77% | 95% |
| University of Chicago | 5% | 6% | 4.48 | 1510-1560 | 33-35 | 99% | 100% |
| University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill | - | 19% | 4.42 | 1330-1500 | 29-33 | 74% | 94% |
| University of Notre Dame | 13% | 15% | ND | 1410-1550 | 32-35 | 91% | 97% |
| University of Pennsylvania* | - | 6% | 3.9 | 1490-1560 | 35-36 | 94% | 98% |
| University of Southern California | 12% | 12% | 3.83 | 1330-1520 | 30-34 | 80% | 95% |
| University of Virginia | 20% | 21% | 4.35 | 1400-1510 | 32-35 | 90% | 98% |
| Vanderbilt University | 6% | 7% | 3.89 | 1480-1570 | 34-35 | 91% | 96% |
| Vassar College | - | 20% | ND | 1420-1520 | 32-34 | 79% | 95% |
| Villanova University | - | 25% | 3.87 | 1350-1490 | 31-34 | 70% | 92% |
| Wake Forest University | - | 25% | ND | 1380-1480 | 30-33 | 69% | 91% |
| Washington and Lee University | - | 19% | ND | 1410-1530 | 32-35 | 78% | 97% |
| Washington University in St. Louis | 10% | 13% | 3.75 | 1490-1570 | 33-35 | 89% | 98% |
| Wellesley College | 13% | 16% | ND | 1410-1530 | 31-35 | 82% | 96% |
| Wesleyan University | 14% | 19% | 1310-1490 | 31-34 | 76% | 94% | |
| Williams College | 9% | 9% | ND | 1470-1550 | 33-35 | 90% | 100% |
| Yale University | 4% | 5% | ND | 1480-1560 | 33-35 | 97% | 99% |
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