Federal Foundation·Two Axes, Not One

Which colleges can you get into and actually afford?

Other tools only calculate “will I get in?” Powered by DecisionTier's proprietary dual-axis scoring engine, we evaluate both admissions odds and true net cost to eliminate the \$40,000 April shock.

Scorecard 2025(U.S. Dept. Ed)
ABA 509(195 Law Schools)
NCES IPEDS(Annual Census)
Title IV FAFSA(SAI & Pell)
Brier Reliability(0 Coerced Zeros)
Real-Time Bi-Axial Radar

Live Institutional Feasibility Engine

Confidence: High (95% CI)
Live 2×2 Radar Preview
Budget:
True Safety
The Trap
Worth Shot
Long Shot
↑ Likely Admitted (Admit > 15%)
↓ Highly Selective Reach
Purdue$12k
UF
NYU$46k
BU
Harvard$2.8k
Northwestern
Purdue Univ. (IN)Admit Rate: 53% · Net Price: $12,400/yr
True Safety
Authoritative Numbers

Built on Public Records, Not Surveys

Commercial college guides rely on marketing claims. DecisionTier runs strictly against federal and statutory regulatory archives.

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Undergraduate Programs

Ingested from U.S. Dept. of Education College Scorecard with strict cell sentinel parsing.

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Accredited Law Schools

Official ABA Standard 509 disclosures with 75th/50th/25th percentile LSAT/GPA bands.

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Coerced Zeros

PrivacySuppressed and NULL values are never coerced to $0, eliminating false affordability.

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Deterministic Aid Verification

Title IV FAFSA Student Aid Index (SAI) coupled with institutional 100% need-met grants.

Core Architectural Invariants

Why Standard Search Fails

Conventional search portals optimize for referral clicks. Powered by DecisionTier's proprietary dual-axis scoring engine, we enforce strict actuarial principles designed to protect your family from financial catastrophe.

Danger Zone

Surfaces "The Trap" Early

Likely Admission × Exceeds Family Budget

Every year, students celebrate admissions to selective universities in December, only to discover in April that the real net price requires $40,000+ in annual loans their family cannot cosign.

Prevents emotional attachment to unaffordable schools.
Algorithm Guarantee

≥2 Affordable Safeties

Mandatory Viable Safety Floor

A list is mathematically invalid unless at least two safeties are comfortably affordable for your specific household income band. We refuse to return a false sense of security.

Never graduate high school with 0 viable college options.
Actuarial Invariant

Selectivity Damping

Sub-15% Admit Rate Hard Floor

As a university becomes hyper-selective, perfect test scores stop guaranteeing admission. Under 15% admit rate? No student is ever tiered better than a reach, regardless of a 1600 SAT.

Protects applicants from lottery school overconfidence.
Interactive Workstation

Calculate Your Realistic List

Powered by DecisionTier's proprietary dual-axis scoring engine. Adjust your academic stats and budget to compute your live 2×2 decision matrix and balanced 12-college portfolio.

Student Profile & Budget Controls

Configure your academic and financial criteria to score college admissions odds and federal net cost.

Presets:
/ 1600
4.0 scale

Unweighted academic average.

Indexes federal Scorecard net prices.

$20,000/yr
$
Instant actuarial scoring calibrated across 1,944 U.S. colleges.

The Decision Matrix (2×2)

Mapping colleges simultaneously by admission probability and family affordability.

Budget: $20,000 / yr0 Traps · Safe Portfolio

TRUE SAFETY

High Priority

Likely Admit + Affordable

0 schools
No colleges currently in this quadrant for your current stats.

THE TRAP ⚠

Danger Zone

Likely Admit + Unaffordable

0 schools

No Unaffordable Traps

All universities where admission is likely fit within your $20,000 family budget!

WORTH THE SHOT

Great Value

Reach + Affordable

0 schools
No colleges currently in this quadrant for your current stats.

LONG SHOT

High Risk

Reach + Unaffordable

0 schools
No colleges currently in this quadrant for your current stats.
Deterministic Ingestion

Synchronized Public Intelligence

DecisionTier connects directly to federal registers, institutional common data sets, and statutory disclosures.

U.S. Dept. of Education Scorecard

Federal Net Price

1,944 4-year institutions with income-banded net costs

ABA Section of Legal Education

Standard 509

195 accredited law schools with LSAT/GPA quartiles

NCES IPEDS Census

Higher Ed Survey

Official cohort graduation, retention & endowment data

Title IV FAFSA Student Aid Index

Financial Need

Pell eligibility and 100% need-met institutional endowment schedules

Brier Reliability Loop

Calibration

Annual empirical validation against real admission cycles

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Career ROI

Post-graduate earnings trajectory by degree credential

Frequently Asked Questions

Honest Admissions & Pricing Mechanics

Everything you need to know about our data sources, selectivity damping, and dual-axis guarantee.

DecisionTier's proprietary dual-axis scoring engine pairs Title IV federal net price schedules and official admissions data with non-linear selectivity damping and interval calibration. Unlike black-box chancing tools, our algorithm evaluates admissions feasibility and out-of-pocket affordability simultaneously to surface a genuinely realistic, debt-safe college portfolio.
Start Before Applications Open

Build a college list that survives financial reality.

Never get into 4 universities and realize in April you cannot attend any of them. Test your profile against our dual-axis engine right now.

100% Free Public Foundation·No Sponsored School Biases·Zero Coerced Data