College Decision. (evaluation)

College Decision by Educational Planning, Inc. is a college selection aid aimed at home users. More modest in conception (and price) than College Explorer from The College Board (reviewed April 1985), College Decision will, nevertheless, provide valuable information to the college-bound student.

The program asks you to make a choice in three or four of seven descriptive categories. For example, in composition of student body, you may choose male, female, co-ed, or no preference. The categories are: geographic region of the U.S., location (size city or town), undergraduate size, composition of student body, tuition and fees, academic rating, and sororities and fraternities. After you make each choice, a number in the upper right of the screen indicates the number of colleges left that satisfy all of your criteria.

After making all your choices, the program will print or display a list of colleges that satisfy your criteria. Each college is described with the above seven factors, average SAT scores of the fresh-man class, male/female ratio, strong academic areas, and other features of interest (work/study programs, religious background, etc.).

In our test, the program was easy to use and worked well. However, we didn't like the fact that you must make a single choice from each category instead of a range. For example, in size, you must choose Under 2000, 2-5000, 5-10,000, 10-15,000, or 15,000 plus. We would have liked to be able to choose under 2000 plus 2-5000, but to do that you must make a second run. The other major limitation is the size of the database: 303 colleges (compared to 3414 on the College Explorer package). On the other hand, the cost is just $39.95 against $189, so you get what you pay for.

Products: College Decision (computer program)