LifeLaunchr College Match

Welcome to LifeLaunchr's College Match

Please answer a few questions so we can find colleges that are best matched to you.

LifeLaunchr’s College Match helps you get clear on the kind of college you’d like to attend and narrow your list based on nearly 40 criteria. We also help you identify your likelihood of admission, estimated cost, potential earnings, and get answers to many questions about colleges.

LifeLaunchr’s membership packages help you research colleges in depth, use our AI-enabled features, and create a plan. Get expert coaching when you need it. For more information, click here.

Note: You can exit this wizard any time, change your responses, and answer additional questions on the College Match page. You can also reopen this guide by clicking “Guide Me Through the College Search.”

Overview

Let’s start with some basic information. GPA is a required field. Answer as many other questions as possible.

What year of school is the student in?

What state is the student a resident of?

Student’s U.S. citizenship status

Enter the student’s current weighted or unweighted GPA*

What is the scale on which the school measures GPA (4.0 for most U.S. schools)?

GPA Type

Enter the student’s highest SAT, ACT, or PSAT score

Which test is the score for?

How would you characterize the student’s extracurricular accomplishments?

How would you characterize the student’s athletic accomplishments?

How would you characterize the rigor of the student’s academic program compared to their school’s offerings?

What was the student’s family’s approximate income last year?

Likelihood

Based on your GPA and test scores, we categorize colleges into groups based on your likelihood of acceptance. These categories don’t account for factors such as sports, arts, or other accomplishments, which can make a difference. But creating a list that is balanced in terms of likelihood is the best approach to selecting colleges.

Which selectivity categories do you want to include in your search (the default is Likely, Target, and Reach schools)?

College Type

Would you like your matches restricted to colleges in the specific categories below? Select “No” if you’d like colleges in all the categories below.

Are you interested primarily in public or private colleges? Leave the answer blank if you don’t care.

What size university are you interested in attending? Leave the answer blank if you don’t care.

Cost & Financial Aid

Would you like to use cost as a criterion for your match? Select “No” if you’d like colleges with different costs, so you can explore scholarships later.

Annual Budget or Expected Family Contribution (EFC). Move the slider to set your budget.

Location

Would you like to use location as a criterion for your match? Select “No” if you’d like colleges in different locations. You can choose locations later.

Regions you’d like to include. Choose as many as you’d like. Leave blank if you’d don’t care or would like to choose later.

States you’d like to include. Choose as many as you’d like. Leave blank if you’d don’t care or would like to choose later.

Majors and Programs

Would you like to make sure that the colleges you apply to offer specific categories of majors? Select “No” if you’re not sure. You can always choose categories of majors or specific majors later.

Majors or programs you’re interested in. Choose as many as you’d like.

Thanks!

Click ‘Finish’ to view your list of matched colleges

WHAT’s NEXT

How to Use This, and Where Do We Get Our Data?

How to Use LifeLaunchr's College Match

LifeLaunchr’s database contains profiles of (nearly) every four-year public and private non-profit university in the United States. We don’t include information on for-profit institutions, two-year institutions, or solely graduate institutions yet. We’ll be expanding our search to add those soon. To use the college match, enter information about yourself. Then make selections in the various selection boxes.

The list automatically updates itself when you make changes. Since different criteria are important to different users, we allow you to say which criteria matter and which don’t. You can enter over 35 different criteria including cost, earnings, location, academic selectivity, and culture. When you find institutions you might be interested in, click the buttons on the left of the name to expand their entries. You’ll be able to see which colleges are “far reach,” reach,” “target,” or “likely” schools for you. You’ll also be able to see the likely cost for students in your income bracket and the median earnings after college for students who attend the university. If the median earnings are higher than the national average, you’ll see a plus sign next to the number. Otherwise, you’ll see a minus sign.

Accessing our AI-Enabled College Profiles

LifeLaunchr’s college profiles provide detailed information on admissions statistics, academics, culture, diversity, sports, and more. To see a college’s profile, click on the “Profile” link.

Our profiles also contain answers to over 40 questions about each college – ranging from questions about which majors the college is best known for to questions about sports teams and cultural diversity – generated by Open AI’s Chat GPT and verified by our coaches. This provides an extraordinary trove of information about each college, all arranged in the same way for each college. You have to be a LifeLaunchr member to access all the answers. Memberships start at just $249/year.

Using our College Research Tools

LifeLaunchr’s college research tools allow students to take notes about the colleges they’re interested in, ask questions, and receive answers so they can build a well-researched college list that focuses on fit and balances likely colleges, targets, and reaches.

Where Do We Get Our Data?

LifeLaunchr aggregates college data from a variety of sources into a single location. Our sources include: the Integrated Post-Secondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the Department of Education’s College Scorecard, and information provided directly by colleges via the Common Data Set through data licensed from Petersons, Inc. The answers to commonly asked questions on our college profiles are generated in part with GPT-3, OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model. We spend significant time creating and testing prompts to get the information we display, so that OpenAI generates initially meaningful responses. Not all the displayed prompts are the questions we asked, as we edit the questions for display purposes. After generating draft responses with OpenAI, LifeLaunchr reviews, edits, and revises the language and takes ultimate responsibility for the content of this publication. Please report any inaccuracies. Copyright (c) 2023 LifeLaunchr. All Rights Reserved.

About Me

Likelihood of Admission

College Names

College Type

Cost and Financial Aid

Earnings and Return on Investment

Location

Majors and Programs

Religion and Culture

Military and Veterans Programs

Sports

Resources to Help You Find Your Best-Fit College