Comparing Schools? Check Out Their "College Portraits"

In the College Admissions Forum, we’ve been discussing the difficulty of measuring a school’s true value. Do the schools in various top-ten rankings really represent the best educations and student experiences available?

This spring, a prospective student’s ability to assess and compare schools will get a little easier. Many members of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) are participating in the Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA). Each participating school will make public its "College Portrait," a data sheet that provides a wide range of information such as retention rates, average test scores, enrollment numbers and the make-up of the faculty.

Much of this information could be found in a school's common data set, but the College Portraits will include two important measures not previously available: "Student Experiences and Perceptions" and "Student Learning Outcomes." The hope is that this reporting will allow students to make better informed decisions when choosing a school, and that colleges will be more accountable for the academic and non-academic experiences of their students. To see an example of one of these new reports, check out SUNY Oneonta’s College Portrait.