Every year, Jennie Kent sends out scores of requests to colleges and universities seeking their most recent Common Data Set, which contains information about admissions, demographics, financial aid, academics and campus life.
And every year, she gathers data from hundreds of the C.D.S.s on a website that she and her fellow college counselor, Jeff Levy, maintain. It’s a free resource for anyone seeking the juicy bits — early decision percentages, the number of affluent families that get discounts — and it takes a lot of time to put together.
Most colleges are happy to share. But not all.
“Never heard of you,” replied Sam Michalowski at Fairleigh Dickinson University a few years back. “And as you make money off of our data, what do we get in return?”
Ms. Kent told him that most colleges like being included on the list, since it can drive interest in the university. “OK, Team Varsity Blues,” he replied via email, referring to the scandal that landed another college counselor in prison.
Such testiness is surprising, but it shouldn’t be shocking in a marketplace for undergraduates that is anything but genteel. Colleges deploy consulting firms that track teenagers’ digital footprints to come up with just the right scholarship offer, and desperate schools will buy students away from their competitors even after the traditional May 1 decision date.
Information is power, and the following schools are among the most prominent that don’t make their recent C.D.S.s available on their websites: Bryant University, Drew University, Emerson College, High Point University, Hillsdale College, La Salle University, St. John’s University, Seton Hall University and the University of Tampa.
Others are posting their most recent C.D.S.s late, including Boston College, Duke University and the University of Southern California. That makes it hard for current college shoppers to make comparisons, though Duke said its form should come within the next week or so. Boston College posted last year’s form in October.
A Drew spokesman described its C.D.S. as “an internal resource.” Emerson, which has new leadership, is reconsidering its past refusal to release the document, and a spokeswoman said that the school valued transparency.
A High Point spokesman said that it “reports institutional data to all appropriate sites.” A Hillsdale spokeswoman sent me its C.D.S. and said it would do the same for anyone who requested it by email at [email protected].
La Salle plans to make its C.D.S. available in the next year or so, but its representatives said something similar to me three years ago and still, no form. Let’s hope it follows through.
At the University of Tampa, a representative said that “per university policy” it does not make its C.D.S. available “for public consumption.” She pointed me to the federal IPEDS site, among other places, for information about the institution.
Bryant University, St. John’s University and Seton Hall University did not respond to messages seeking comment.
There are many reasons for why schools might not want to share their C.D.S. broadly, but at least some of them are probably worried about money.
If they are not coming close to meeting most matriculated students’ financial need, it’s not a great look. That’s especially true if they’re also giving lots of merit aid to students who don’t need the money.
For shoppers wanting to see their odds of getting merit aid — and checking to see how their offers measure up with last year’s class — that data is available on the C.D.S. as well.
You won’t find much merit aid information in the federal data that the Tampa representative pointed to, though both the College Scorecard and the IPEDS websites are well worth visiting to look up other data about schools you’re considering.
Who knows, however, how good that data will be in the future or whether it will be there at all, given all of the cuts at Education Department units that collect such information.
“The National Center for Education Statistics has been decimated with cuts,” said Michael Trivette, whose company, College Transitions, maintains its own public database of C.D.S.s.
That said, the White House just ordered colleges to hand over data about grades and test scores that includes race and gender. And it wants to see merit aid data as well. We’ll see if it happens.
While we wait, nothing is stopping the holdouts from coming around now. Their competitors are sharing, after all. If you or your children are applying to any of the schools, ask them for the common data set. If enough people do, perhaps they’ll all cough them up eventually.
As for Fairleigh Dickinson, it does post its C.D.S., prickliness aside. Mr. Michalowski said in an interview this week that he hadn’t been accusing Ms. Kent of illicit deeds. “We just get a lot of requests from dubious sources,” he said.
Ms. Kent confirmed this week that she was in no trouble with the law and said that she chased down forms for the public good.
“This is the biggest community service project I do every year,” she said.
Ron Lieber has been the Your Money columnist since 2008 and has written five books, most recently “The Price You Pay for College.”
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