Useful information requires visible provenance.

Every material fact should answer four questions: who published it, what period it describes, when it was checked, and what its limitations are.

Facts are not interpretations.

Official values, calculated indicators, third-party context, and editorial summaries remain visibly distinct.

Missing is better than invented.

Fields that have not been independently verified are labeled as not reviewed or unavailable—not replaced with AI-generated substitutes.

AI assists review.

Models may extract or explain approved sources, but consequential facts require validation and never publish directly from a chat response.

Source map

Primary public information systems

Research activity

NSF HERD institution-level research spending and IPEDS research-doctorate completions, joined by UNITID and kept separate from program strength, undergraduate access, and health-system affiliation.

Institution and outcomes

College Scorecard and IPEDS supply structured fields. Every profile offers an official-domain Common Data Set search; a verified direct institutional link replaces that search when available. Search results remain discovery leads, and version 1 does not extract or interpret CDS values.

Application planning

Official admissions pages establish plan availability, deadlines, testing rules, and materials. Unreviewed official-domain searches remain discovery leads, while family-entered status and notes stay local to the device.

Financial aid process

Federal cost and aid cohorts remain separate from college-specific forms, deadlines, merit processes, and renewal rules. Families save exact official pages and confirmed requirements locally.

Programs and pathways

Official catalogs, department pages, undergraduate-school rules, and program handbooks.

Campus fit and student life

IPEDS locale classifications plus official honors, housing, dining, and fraternity/sorority-life pages. Participation is published only when the institution supplies a current figure.

Athletics and recreation

Department of Education EADA records support varsity-team participation and financial context. Official athletics, recreation, association, and conference sources establish current teams, division, conference, club, and intramural offerings; every claim keeps its source season.

Student support

Official campus health, counseling, disability-access, and registered-organization directories. A linked office establishes an entry point—not service quality, immediate availability, eligibility, or cost.

Campus safety

Exact Annual Security Report artifacts and Department of Education Clery datasets.

Local crime

FBI Crime Data Explorer, state UCR systems, and official municipal police open-data portals.

Housing and place

Census ACS, HUD benchmarks, official transit feeds, and municipal or regional sources.

Campus visits

Official admissions and department pages establish visit inventory and registration. Airport and rail distances are geographic context, not schedules or travel-time promises.

Healthcare and employment

CMS provider data, BLS/QCEW, official facilities, and regional public datasets.

Safety methodology

Two layers, never one misleading score.

Campus · Clery

Counts stay separated by category and reporting geography. When enrollment denominators are valid, rates may be shown beside raw counts. Exact report pages remain accessible.

Community · local crime

Violent and property rates remain separate. Any reference index names its agency, geography, denominator, reference rate, year, and completeness.

Transparent reference calculationlocal rate ÷ reference rate × 100

An index is withheld when coverage, definitions, reporting periods, or geography do not support a valid comparison.

Corrections and freshness

Research records must age visibly.

Time-sensitive fields receive review dates. Changed source pages create review tasks rather than silently overwriting published claims. Every approved change keeps its prior value and evidence.

View source and coverage status →
Review data rights and reuse →
Report a correction →