Status: idea (2026-10-03). After college-reported-round-3.md (the agent, its archive and recipes) and student-profile.md (intended majors). Part of ideas.
Question it answers
Do I apply to the college, or to the major? If I get into the university, am I in the program? Can I switch into it later? At many large universities the real selectivity is in computer science, nursing, engineering, and business, not at the front door. Families find this out at orientation, when the "pre-major" letter arrives, or when a change-of-major request is refused.
Why it's fresh
College Kickstart sells admit rates for 600 departments at 80 colleges, gathered by hand. The structural facts matter more and every college publishes them: what unit admits (the university, a school or college within it, or the major itself), which programs admit directly from high school, what secondary admission requires after the first year (a GPA floor in prerequisites, a competitive application, a cap on seats), and whether changing into the major is open, restricted, or closed. No site collects these across colleges. The college-reported agent already reads each college's admissions pages for other purposes; this is a recipe per college and a review queue, the pattern round 3 builds for every document.
Data
reported.major_admission[]: {
cip_family: "11" | "51.38" | "14" | "52" | …, // computer science, nursing, engineering, business first
unit: "university" | "school" | "major", // what the first-year application admits to
direct_admit: true | false | "some", // first-years can be admitted straight into the program
secondary: { required: boolean, gpa_floor: number | null, prerequisites: string | null,
competitive: boolean, cap: string | null } | null,
change_in: "open" | "restricted" | "closed" | null,
admit_rate: { admitted, applied, year } | null, // only when the college publishes it; quoted like any figure
quote: string, source_url: string, fetched: date, edition: string | null
}
Sources, in order: the college's "how we admit" pages; the department's "admission to the major" page; the catalog's change-of-major policy. Every value carries a verbatim quote and its URL, as every figure the agent publishes does; anything without a quote goes to review. Start with the 200 most-applied-to colleges and the four program families families ask about most, then expand on request (a "request this college" button, like the data-update requests CollegeIQ takes by form).
Examples to verify in the pilot, from public pages read 2026-10-03: the University of Washington admits to computer science directly from high school and again later; Purdue admits to a first-choice major and publishes change-of-degree requirements per program; UIUC admits by major and restricts changes into computer science; several University of California campuses label majors "capped" or "selective".
Display
- Profile, Academics: a "Getting into your major" block for the student's intended majors (or a picker): "Admitted to the major directly from high school" · "Admitted to the university; nursing admits after year one: GPA 3.2 in the prerequisites, competitive, about 60 seats" · "Changing into computer science is closed to current students", each with the quote in its citation popover and a link to the page.
- Explore: filters "Direct admit for my major" and "Changing into my major is open" (signed in with intended majors).
- Standing (Chances and Fit: Where You Stand): a caveat line when the unit is the major: "Standing here describes the university; computer science admits separately and publishes a 9% admit rate (fall 2025)".
- Saved list: a chip per row ("major: direct", "major: after year one", "major: closed to changes").
- Compare: a row for the chosen major.
- Glossary:
direct-admit,secondary-admission,pre-major,capped-major.
Checks
A published major admit rate more than three times the college's overall rate goes to review (a department rarely
admits more generously than its university). change_in: closed needs a quote that says so. A program with no
completions in that CIP family can't have a record. A record older than two admissions cycles is shown with its year
and re-read when the page changes (the archive's manifest knows).
Tier
Free on profiles: it is data about the college. Plus: the Explore filters and the list chips.
Complexity
Large: a new recipe type for the agent with checks and review, new fields, a profile block, two filters, a standing caveat, and a pilot.
Open questions
- The first pass is about 800 page visits (200 colleges × four families); measure its cost in the round-3 pilot before expanding.
- Published admit rates by major overlap what Kickstart sells; capture them only where the college publishes them, with the quote, and never estimate one.
- Nursing has a second gate (direct-entry versus 2+2 programs); the pilot decides whether the schema needs a
program_type.