The Common Data Set (CDS) Initiative is a collaborative effort between the higher education community and publishers represented by College Board, Peterson's, and U.S. News & World Report. Established in 1995, the initiative develops standardized questions, definitions, and reporting conventions for information commonly reported by colleges and universities.
The goal of the initiative is to improve the consistency and accuracy of higher education information while reducing the reporting burden placed on institutions.
A Common Data Set typically contains information about topics such as:
Importantly, the Common Data Set is a reporting standard, not a centralized database of colleges. Individual colleges and universities complete Common Data Set reports and many choose to publish those reports through their own institutional research, admissions, or university websites.
For information about the Common Data Set standard itself, its definitions, or current CDS templates, visit the official Common Data Set Initiative website.
CommonDataSets.com is an independent project and is not the official website of the Common Data Set Initiative.
Our goal is to make the information contained in publicly released Common Data Sets easier to find, explore, compare, and understand.
Universities often publish their Common Data Sets individually, commonly as PDFs or spreadsheets distributed across hundreds of separate institutional websites. While the CDS standard makes the information itself relatively consistent, accessing and comparing that information across institutions can still require considerable searching and manual review.
CommonDataSets.com brings publicly available Common Data Sets together into a more accessible interface and provides tools for exploring the information contained within them.
Rather than replacing the Common Data Set, our project is intended to make better use of the standardized information that universities already publish.
College data is useful, but it is not always easy to work with.
A prospective student comparing several universities might otherwise need to locate multiple institutional research websites, download several lengthy PDF documents, identify the same field in each document, and manually compare the results.
We want to make that process simpler.
Our filtering, search, and display tools are designed to help prospective students, families, counselors, researchers, and anyone interested in higher education explore college information in a consistent format.
Common Data Set information can help answer questions such as:
Our goal is not to rank colleges or tell students where they should attend. Instead, we aim to provide a useful tool for exploring the underlying information so users can draw their own conclusions and make more informed decisions.
The Common Data Sets indexed by this project originate from publicly available reports released by colleges and universities, typically through their official websites.
CommonDataSets.com does not collect Common Data Set responses directly from universities and does not represent itself as an official reporting platform for participating institutions.
To make the information easier to search and display, portions of these documents may be converted into structured data. We strive to accurately represent the information contained in the original reports, but the university-published source document should always be considered the authoritative source.
Because institutions publish and update their Common Data Sets independently, the availability of reports and reporting years may vary from one institution to another.
Not every institution publishes every Common Data Set, and individual questions within a CDS may sometimes be left blank or marked as unavailable.
Information may also differ from figures shown elsewhere because of differences in reporting periods, definitions, student cohorts, or later revisions made by an institution.
If there is a discrepancy between information displayed on CommonDataSets.com and an institution's original Common Data Set, the institution's published document should be treated as authoritative.
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CommonDataSets.com is an independent project and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the Common Data Set Initiative, College Board, Peterson's, U.S. News & World Report, or the colleges and universities whose publicly available reports may appear on this site.
The Common Data Set Initiative establishes and maintains the CDS reporting standard. CommonDataSets.com independently organizes publicly available institutional reports and develops tools to make that information easier to explore.
For official information about the Common Data Set Initiative, its methodology, definitions, and current reporting templates, please visit the official Common Data Set Initiative website.
Accuracy is important to us. If you notice incorrect information, a missing Common Data Set, an outdated source, or another issue with the site, we welcome corrections and feedback.
Questions, corrections, or other communication regarding this independent project can be directed to info@commondatasets.com.