College · College Success · Choosing among offers

Every yes on one table.
Your priorities do the math.

Score each college that admitted you, give each thing that matters a weight, and see the ranking. The student and the family weigh separately, so you can see where you agree before the reply date.

Start the matrixWhat you get
2voices: student and family
6colleges at most
100points for a perfect fit

The decision matrix

Load the example to see a made-up student and family who start out disagreeing, then replace it with your own colleges, weights and scores.

Loading the decision matrix. If nothing appears, turn on JavaScript.

What a decision matrix is good for

It does not choose. It shows what your own priorities say, and how firmly they say it.

Screenfirst

Must-haves come before scores

A college that lacks your major, or costs more than your family can pay, should not win on campus feel. Rule it out in step 1 with the reason, and it leaves the ranking but stays on the page.

Weightwo voices

Weights are opinions, so write them down

The student and the family rarely care about the same things in the same order. Setting weights apart, then looking side by side, turns a vague argument into two or three numbers to talk about.

Doubt4 points

A small lead is a tie

One dot on a criterion carrying a fifth of the weight moves a total by 4 points. The page calls any lead smaller than one dot on your heaviest criterion too close to call, and shows which weight would flip it.

What you get

College · College SuccessAlso for College · Family ResourcesFreeStudent and family modes

What you finish with
A ranked list of the colleges that admitted you under the student’s weights and under the family’s, a plain statement of how firm each result is and what would change it, the colleges ruled out and why, and a one-page summary to print for the conversation.
Who it is for
High school seniors and transfer students choosing among admission offers, and the parents or guardians deciding with them. It also works for comparing a short list before applying.
Format
Browser tool with a student view, a family view and a side-by-side view. Works on a phone and from the keyboard. Prints a one-page summary and saves the matrix as a .csv.
Access
Free. No account and no sign-in. Colleges, weights and scores are saved only in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The College Success space in Caveat College; also listed for Family Resources (the family’s weights and the side-by-side view).
Support
Questions, a correction or a request: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. List the colleges that admitted you. Rule out any that fail a must-have, and say why.
  2. Set the weights. Switch between Student and Family so each sets their own, without looking at the other’s first.
  3. Score every college on every line: dots for judgments, numbers for net price and graduation rate.
  4. Open Side by side. Read where you differ and how steady each result is, then print the summary and talk it through.

Start the matrix

How the ranking is worked out

The same arithmetic every time, written out so you can check it by hand.

The arithmetic

  • Points. Dots count as 1 to 5. For a number, the best value among the colleges still in the running gets 5 points, and each college loses one point for every step it is away from the best, never dropping below 1. The step is yours to set: 5,000 dollars a year of net price and 10 percentage points of graduation rate are starting values, not rules.
  • Total. Each criterion’s points are divided by 5, multiplied by its weight, added up, divided by the sum of the weights and multiplied by 100. A college with five dots on everything scores 100.
  • Too close to call means the gap between first and second is smaller than 20 × (heaviest weight ÷ sum of weights), which is what one dot on the heaviest criterion is worth.
  • How steady is it tries every whole-number weight from 0 to 10 on each criterion, one at a time, and reports the smallest change that puts a different college first.
  • Not ranked means a college is missing a score for something that has a weight above zero. A blank is never treated as a low score.

Where the numbers come from

Net price is the cost of attendance for one year minus grants and scholarships, the amount a family covers from savings, earnings and loans. Take it from each college’s financial aid offer, not from the published price.

Graduation rate and typical earnings by field are on the College Scorecard. Look up each college by name and copy the figure.

The reply date. Many colleges ask for a decision and an enrollment deposit by May 1; the date that applies to you is on each admission offer. Send a deposit to one college only: holding places at two can lead a college to withdraw its offer.

The example student, family and colleges are made up. No real college’s data is built into this page.

Sources

  1. The weighted-sum model of multi-criteria decision analysis, as set out in Valerie Belton and Theodor J. Stewart, Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis: An Integrated Approach (Kluwer, 2002): screening on must-haves first, scoring, weighting, and testing how sensitive the result is to the weights.
  2. U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard (collegescorecard.ed.gov): graduation rates, average annual cost and median earnings by field of study for each college.
  3. National Center for Education Statistics, College Navigator (nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator): enrollment, programs offered, retention and graduation rates.
  4. Higher Education Act, 20 U.S.C. 1015a: net price defined as the cost of attendance minus grant and scholarship aid, and the net price calculator each college must post.

A way to organize a decision, not advice about which college to attend. The ranking is only as good as the scores and weights entered. Compare financial aid offers on net price for the same year, and check each college’s own reply date and deposit rules. The example is made up. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.