Choose Your College

I happened to be doing research for an essay and came across "The College Portrait."  I had never heard of it before and should have since in academia because it is a source of basic, comparable information about public colleges and institutions presented in a common, user-friendly format. It is designed to be a trustworthy source of reliable data for prospective students and their families.

The website goes on to say that the College Portrait was created as part of the Voluntary System of AccountabilityTM, (VSA) - a program designed to provide greater accountability through accessible, transparent, and comparable information. The VSA and College Portrait are sponsored by two nonprofit organizations in Washington DC – the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU). More than 80 higher education leaders from 70 public institutions were involved in developing the College Portrait.

AASCU and APLU represent more than 500 public colleges and universities across the United States. Participation in the VSA is voluntary; however, over half of the 500 member institutions – nearly 300 at last count – have decided to join the VSA project. Each of these colleges and universities will be posting their College Portraits within the next few months.

So check out the site and see if your college is on it and how it rates at http://www.collegeportraits.org/.  I searched for information on Purdue and found it to be quite interesting.