Narrow the whole field down to the part that is yours
Three questions gets you a list — and the thing that matters more: what each cut removed, and whether it was worth it.
Act one · What do you want to become?
IllustrativeScores come later. Pick a direction you actually want to move toward — or just write something, even "my mother told me to use this".
The layer that reasons from an ambition to majors and schools is not built. Choosing here only records it; it will not change the numbers on the right.
Narrowing by major is not built — we hold no programme-level data at all, so there is no invented number here.
Act two · What do these places actually mean?
MeasuredCity versus small town is the cut that genuinely changes four years. Each choice shows what it alone removed, and what that was.
The small number beside each option is how many campuses would be left if you chose it. An option showing 0 would empty the list, but it is still clickable, and will tell you why.
The eight federal regions, not eight moods — the Southeast holds both Miami and rural Alabama. This replaces a list of more than fifty states; what actually shapes four years is still the Setting control above.
Which states are in which region
- New England CT ME MA NH RI VT
- Mid-Atlantic DE DC MD NJ NY PA
- Southeast AL AR FL GA KY LA MS NC SC TN VA WV
- Great Lakes IL IN MI OH WI
- Plains IA KS MN MO NE ND SD
- Southwest AZ NM OK TX
- Rocky Mountains CO ID MT UT WY
- Far West AK CA HI NV OR WA
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) regions, as listed in the IPEDS 2023 data dictionary.
The December–February average of daily lows (NOAA 1991–2020 normals), at the nearest weather station within 25 km — a median of about 5.5 km away. A mountain campus can differ by several degrees from a station in the valley below.
Straight-line distance to the nearest salt-water shoreline (Natural Earth 1:10m, public domain), including bays, sounds and tidal river mouths, and excluding the Great Lakes — Chicago and Detroit do not count. Note that river cities such as Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia also read as close, because their rivers are tidal; they are not on the open ocean. Accurate to a few km, so read the 10 km band as "close", not as a precise line.
How much the land rises and falls within 25 km of the campus (a hiking radius): the 95th minus the 5th percentile of land elevation (USGS 3DEP / SRTM / GMTED2010, public domain). It measures relief, not altitude — Boulder and Denver are at almost the same altitude (about 1,650 m) but Boulder's relief is about 1,240 m and Denver's about 400 m. 25 km is a close radius: a campus near a big range reads low if the range lies beyond it — the University of Washington in Seattle reads about 170 m, below the lowest band.
Act three · What you are working with
Scores do not filter markets, only feasibility within one, which is why they come last. Nationality is the opposite — it is the single largest cut.
The aid layer is currently a single-digit sample extracted by hand, school by school, which is not enough to filter on. See DESIGN.md §13.
Act four · Major
MeasuredChoosing a subject removes no school. It does two things: it moves the schools that actually award it to the top, and it tells you when your location choice and your subject choice are in conflict.
Schools in the essay library
In the libraryThe essay library covers only a small number of U.S. schools whose prompts have been checked one by one. Here is how they relate to your current filter: once on My list you can plan deadlines, and the reuse map shows which essays carry across.
The library covers 9 U.S. schools; 0 of them are inside your current filter.
None of the schools in the library is inside your current filter. That says the library is still small, not that those schools are poor fits: relax one condition, or browse what the library covers.
- See promptsSign up to add →Brown UniversityRIExcluded by: Region (Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Southwest); Winter (Dec–Feb) average nightly low ≥ 0°C
- See promptsSign up to add →Boston UniversityMAExcluded by: Region (Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Southwest); Winter (Dec–Feb) average nightly low ≥ 0°C
- See promptsSign up to add →Cornell UniversityNYExcluded by: Winter (Dec–Feb) average nightly low ≥ 0°C
- See promptsSign up to add →Duke UniversityNCExcluded by: Winter (Dec–Feb) average nightly low ≥ 0°C
- See promptsSign up to add →Harvard UniversityMAExcluded by: Region (Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Southwest); Winter (Dec–Feb) average nightly low ≥ 0°C
- See promptsSign up to add →Northwestern UniversityILExcluded by: Region (Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Southwest); Winter (Dec–Feb) average nightly low ≥ 0°C
- See promptsSign up to add →New York UniversityNYExcluded by: Winter (Dec–Feb) average nightly low ≥ 0°C
- See promptsSign up to add →University of ChicagoILExcluded by: Region (Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Southwest); Winter (Dec–Feb) average nightly low ≥ 0°C
- See promptsSign up to add →University of Southern CaliforniaCAExcluded by: Region (Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Southwest)
The library also holds 3 Hong Kong universities. They are outside the U.S. federal data, so they take no part in this filter: add them from the library directly.
Adding a school does not change your filter, and which schools your filter returns does not depend on whether they are in the library.