The map covers active public and private non-profit US institutions that report offering bachelor’s degrees and have mappable campus coordinates. It excludes institutions whose undergraduates were all enrolled remotely in the reporting period. Check entry eligibility and course availability with each institution.
- Campus, sector and setting: NCES IPEDS Institutional Directory and Institutional Characteristics 2025. Map dots show the reporting campus.
- Groups: Ivy League means the league’s eight official members. Liberal arts uses Carnegie’s 2021 “Baccalaureate Colleges: Arts & Sciences Focus” definition. Research uses Carnegie’s 2025 R1/R2 designations. Women’s colleges and specialist designations also come from Carnegie 2025, and historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) from IPEDS. Groups can overlap.
- Academic focus: derived from the Carnegie 2025 institutional classification. “Broad academic” covers Arts & Sciences and Mixed institutions. “Career-focused” covers Professions-focused ones, and “Specialist” covers the other Special Focus types, such as theological, health, art and business schools.
- Subjects: NCES IPEDS Completions 2024–25. A subject appears if the institution reported bachelor’s awards in that field. Check the catalogue for the exact course, campus and route into the major.
- Enrolment, admit rate and test scores: NCES IPEDS autumn 2024. The admit rate covers all first-time applicants. SAT and ACT ranges are the middle 50% of reported scores from entering students. International share is the percentage of undergraduates reported as nonresidents. It does not measure your chances of admission. Use each university’s current admissions page for test policies and A level requirements.
- Annual tuition and fees: NCES IPEDS 2024–25 published out-of-state tuition and required fees for full-time first-year undergraduates, in US dollars, before any aid. This is the price College Navigator shows. The on-campus estimate adds books, housing, food and other expenses for full-time first-year undergraduates. Check current costs for international students, including travel and insurance.
- Aid: selected published policies for first-year applicants who are neither US citizens nor US permanent residents, with source links and check dates. Need-blind means your ability to pay is not considered in admission. Full demonstrated need means need as the university calculates it. Universities whose policy hasn’t been checked can stay visible when you filter. They show in amber.
- Time difference and distance: worked out from each campus’s state and coordinates. The time difference updates for UK and US clock changes. Distance is a straight line from central London, not a flight time.
How planning labels work
Labels appear only when you’ve added a profile. Each university gets three separate checks: academic fit (verified subject, A-level and testing requirements), admissions selectivity (published admit rates, and whether the decision is made by programme) and funding fit (cost against your budget, and what any aid depends on). These are this tool’s own planning rules. They aren’t university rules or a tested prediction model, and they never give a chance of admission.
- High reach: overall admit rate under 15%, whatever your grades.
- Reach: admit rate 15% to under 40%. Also used when your achieved SAT/ACT is below the middle 50% of score submitters, or your predicted grades are below an A-level profile the university publishes.
- Possible match: admit rate 40% or more, plus academic evidence. That means an achieved SAT/ACT within or above the middle 50% of submitters, or predicted grades that meet an A-level profile or a UK minimum that the university publishes. A minimum counts as evidence, but it is the lowest grade considered, not a typical admitted profile.
- Potentially safer option: as for a possible match, plus an admit rate of 70% or more and a total cost within your budget before aid. A university that depends on aid or an uncertain scholarship is never called safer.
- Insufficient evidence: no admit rate, or a 40%+ admit rate with no academic evidence to compare. Most US universities don’t publish A-level profiles, so this is common.
- No label (requirement gap): a verified required A level is missing from your profile, or your predicted grades are below a minimum the university publishes for UK applicants.
Practice test scores are shown for reference only. A missing test score only counts where the university’s verified current policy requires one. Needing aid never changes a label, but need-aware policies are explained. A levels are never converted into a US GPA, and four A levels aren’t treated as better than three.
Requirements data: checked against official university pages for 90 universities (7 November 2026, mostly for entry in autumn 2027): testing policy, UK qualification guidance, subject requirements, deadlines, application platforms, English-test rules and each university’s own published cost. Each item stores its source link, date, scope (whole university or one programme) and whether the page itself was read or only a search summary of it. Items first seen only in search summaries were re-opened in a browser where possible. Every other university shows its requirements as unknown.
Net price calculators: links come from each university’s entry in the NCES IPEDS directory (2024). Most are designed for US families.
Pounds: converted at $1.3476 per £1 (Bank of England spot rate, 5 November 2026). You can enter your own rate in your profile. Dollar figures are always shown too.
Logos: each is the icon the university publishes on its own website, found from its official address in IPEDS. Where that couldn’t be read, it’s a Wikimedia Commons file matched to the university by its IPEDS ID through Wikidata. Icons that were too small, blank, a wide wordmark, or the same generic website-builder icon used by unrelated colleges were left out, and those universities keep a monogram. The source and check date are under Links in each profile. Logos only identify the university and don’t imply endorsement. They load after the rest of the page, so they never slow down the map or the list.
Records over a year old are flagged automatically in the checks, so an out-of-date copy of this tool warns you itself.
Applying from the UK: check each university’s guidance on UK qualifications, predicted A levels, school reports and deadlines. If you have US citizenship or permanent residency, confirm how the university classifies you for aid.
US admissions in plain English
- Common App
- One online application used by most US universities, a bit like UCAS but with a separate list of universities and their own extra essays. Some universities use their own form, and the University of California has the UC Application.
- Early Decision (ED)
- An early application, usually due in November, that is binding: if you’re admitted you must go and withdraw other applications. You can apply ED to only one university. ED II is a later binding round.
- Early Action (EA)
- An early application that isn’t binding. You hear sooner and can still apply elsewhere. Restrictive or single-choice Early Action (REA/SCEA) is also not binding, but limits other early applications.
- Regular Decision (RD)
- The main round, usually due in early January, with decisions in March or April. Rolling admission means decisions as applications arrive.
- Test-optional / test-free
- Test-optional: you choose whether to send an SAT or ACT score. Test-free (or test-blind): scores aren’t considered at all.
- Major
- Your main subject. At many US universities you choose it during your first or second year, so you apply to the university rather than to a course. Some schools within a university, often engineering or business, admit separately.
- Liberal arts college
- A smaller college focused on undergraduate teaching across many subjects, with a broad first year before you specialise.
- School report and recommendations
- Your school sends a report, predicted grades and usually a counsellor’s letter, and most universities also want one or two teacher recommendations. A levels aren’t converted into a US grade point average (GPA).
- Need-blind / need-aware
- Need-blind: asking for financial aid doesn’t affect admission. Need-aware: it can be part of the decision, often for international applicants.
- Meets full demonstrated need
- The university promises to cover the gap between its cost and what it calculates your family can pay. Its figure can differ from yours.
- Merit scholarship
- An award for achievement rather than need. Some are automatic, others competitive. Many are partial and don’t cover the full cost.
- CSS Profile / financial aid forms
- The forms many universities use to calculate need. International applicants often need them, or the university’s own form, at the same time as the application.
- Net price calculator
- A tool every US university must publish to estimate the cost after aid. Most are built for US families, so for international students use it only where the university says it applies.
- Cost of attendance / I-20
- The university’s estimate of a full year’s cost. The I-20 is the form you need for an F-1 student visa, and it requires proof that you can pay the estimated cost.