Built by a parent who got tired of campus tours that said nothing useful.

My daughter already knew what she wanted to study. That part was easy. What wasn't easy was figuring out where— which school, which campus, which city, which size, which vibe. She had a direction. She didn't have a destination.

So I built a quiz. Nothing fancy at first — just a set of structured questions to help her think through the things that actually matter: How far from home? What kind of social scene? How competitive academically? Does weather matter? What about housing?

It worked. We narrowed it down to five schools. Visited all of them. And what surprised us both was how wrong we'd been about some of them going in — schools we expected to love that felt off, and one we almost skipped that ended up being her clear favorite.

That's the thing about college visits: you can't really know until you're standing there. But you can narrow the list to the ones worth standing in front of.

She's my first of three. I'll be doing this again. And when I realized other families were going through the same thing — armed with glossy brochures and 45-minute walking tours that show you the new dining hall and nothing else — I decided to turn the process into something anyone could use.

“You can't really know until you're standing there. But you can narrow the list to the ones worth standing in front of.”

FindYourU pulls real data — federal enrollment figures, actual cost of attendance, graduation rates, earnings after graduation — and combines it with honest, specific information about what each school is actually like to live at. Not what the admissions office says. What students report.

The quiz isn't designed to sell you on a school. It's designed to help you figure out which ones are worth your time. The comparison tool is designed for the moment you've got a short list and need to sit down as a family and actually talk through it.

I hope it helps your family the way it helped mine.

We believe you should know exactly where the information in your report comes from. Here's a plain-language breakdown.

Official & Third-Party Data

U.S. Department of Education — College Scorecard

collegescorecard.ed.gov

Admission rates, tuition, room & board, cost of attendance, graduation rates, retention rates, median earnings after graduation, median student debt, Pell Grant rates, first-generation student rates, SAT/ACT score ranges.

Updated annually. Data typically lags 1–2 years. Figures reflect Title IV aid recipients. Public domain — no affiliation implied.

U.S. Department of Education — Campus Safety & Security Survey

ope.ed.gov/campussafety

On-campus crime statistics reported under the Clery Act: sexual assault, aggravated assault, burglary, robbery, murder, drug and weapons arrests, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking.

Institutions are required by federal law to report these figures annually. Figures reflect incidents reported to campus security — not all crimes are reported to campus authorities.

Google Maps

developers.google.com/maps/documentation/places

Campus location, Google star rating, review count, and nearby places (food, coffee, grocery) within approximately 2 kilometers of campus.

Ratings and reviews reflect public submissions on Google Maps and may not represent all student experiences.

Open-Meteo Archive API

open-meteo.com

Historical climate averages: January and July high/low temperatures (°F), annual snowfall, annual rainy days. Derived from 5-year ERA5 reanalysis data for each campus location.

Free and open source. No API key required. Historical averages may not predict future conditions.

Walk Score

walkscore.com

Transit Score and Bike Score for each campus location. Transit Score measures how well-served an area is by public transit (0–100). Bike Score measures bikeability based on infrastructure, hills, and destinations (0–100).

Scores reflect conditions near campus and may not represent the broader city. Data provided by Walk Score®.