Our Methodology
Every number
earns its place.
RawRecruit's recruiting intelligence is built on verified data from federal education databases, official college athletic records, and NCAA academic reports. Not crowdsourced opinions. Not self-reported profiles. Primary sources, verified and cross-referenced.
Other platforms ask athletes to self-report.
We go directly to the source.
The college recruiting industry relies on crowdsourced rankings and self-reported profiles. Athletes get matched to programs that don't fit. Parents invest in services built on unverified data. We took a different approach: every data point must prove where it came from.
Primary Sources
Where the data comes from
Six categories of verified data feed every Fit Score, every school profile, and every high school pipeline ranking in the RawRecruit platform.
College Athletic Rosters
1,597 NCAA, NAIA & NJCAA Programs
Player names, positions, physical measurements, class years, hometowns, and high schools. Compiled directly from official college athletic department records across all five sports: football, men's basketball, women's basketball, men's track, and women's track.
NCES High School Database
U.S. Department of Education
Every high school in our database is matched to its official federal record in the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) database. Each school carries a stable federal identifier with verified location, grades offered, and institutional classification.
IPEDS
National Center for Education Statistics
All Title IV institutions report enrollment, demographics, retention rates, campus characteristics, and student outcomes annually to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. Federal law mandates this reporting. We use it to power campus environment matching.
College Scorecard
U.S. Department of Education
Financial and outcome data for every federally funded institution: net price by family income bracket, median post-graduation earnings, average student loan debt, and minority-serving institution designations. Updated annually.
NCAA Academic Reports
National Collegiate Athletic Association
Academic Progress Rate (APR) and Graduation Success Rate (GSR) reported publicly for every NCAA program by sport. These metrics measure how well programs support student-athletes academically and are factored into Cultural Fit scoring.
Climate & Economic Data
NOAA · Bureau of Labor Statistics
Regional climate classifications and cost-of-living indices for every campus location in the United States. Athletes who care about weather, campus setting, or financial context see these factors reflected in their Cultural Fit score.
Coverage at a Glance
1,597
Programs Tracked
1,000,000+
Roster Records
146,000+
Coaching Staff
51,010
High Schools
Data Integrity
How we keep it accurate
Three principles govern every data point in the RawRecruit platform.
Primary-Source Verification
Every record traces back to an official institutional source. College rosters come from athletic department records. High schools are matched to federal NCES identifiers. Academic and financial data comes from mandatory federal reporting systems.
Cross-Reference Validation
No single source is trusted in isolation. We cross-reference roster data against multiple institutional records, flag statistical outliers, and maintain quality scores for every school profile in the database.
Continuous Refresh
Data has a shelf life. Roster and coaching data is refreshed monthly during the academic year. Federal datasets are updated annually with each new release. Pipeline statistics are recomputed on a rolling 5-year window.
The Fit Score
Five dimensions. One score.
The Fit Score is a 0 to 100 composite that measures how well an athlete matches a specific college program. Each score evaluates five distinct dimensions calibrated per sport.
Athletic Fit
How your physical profile and performance metrics compare to athletes currently on the roster at your position. For football and basketball, this evaluates height and weight percentiles. For track and field, event marks and performance benchmarks.
Academic Fit
How your GPA, test scores, and academic record align with the school's admissions standards and historical student profile. Schools with higher academic selectivity weight this dimension more heavily.
Positional Need
Whether the program has current or projected roster openings at your position in your graduating class. This accounts for seniors departing, underclassman depth, and recruiting class composition.
Geographic Proximity
How your home location intersects with the school's established geographic recruiting patterns. Programs that historically recruit from your region score higher on this dimension.
Cultural Fit
How the campus environment, financial accessibility, diversity profile, academic support systems, and student-athlete culture align with your stated preferences. This dimension draws from six sub-factors sourced from federal institutional data.
Proprietary weighting. The specific weight each dimension carries is calibrated per sport and adjusted dynamically based on data availability. All five dimensions contribute to every score. The weighting methodology is proprietary and patent-pending.
High School Pipeline
Connecting high schools to college outcomes
RawRecruit maps the verified path from high school to college program for every athlete in our roster database. Every U.S. high school with at least one verified college placement is evaluated per sport and per division level using a percentile-based tier system.
Elite
Top 2%
Strong
Top 10%
Rising
Top 25%
Emerging
≥1 placement
Tiers are computed over a rolling 5-year window and include sport-specific breakdowns across seven division levels: FBS, FCS, D1, D2, D3, NAIA, and JUCO. The system is self-calibrating. As more data enters the platform, thresholds adjust to preserve elite scarcity.
Football is the only sport that separates FBS and FCS as distinct tiers. All other sports combine FBS, FCS, and standalone D-I programs into a single Division I category, reflecting how those sports are organized at the NCAA level.
Frequently Asked
Questions about our data
Where does RawRecruit get its college recruiting data?
RawRecruit builds its recruiting database from primary institutional sources. College roster data comes directly from official athletic department records at 1,597 NCAA, NAIA, and NJCAA programs. High school data is verified against the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) federal database. Academic and financial metrics come from IPEDS and the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard. Athletic academic performance data comes from NCAA public reports.
How accurate is RawRecruit's recruiting data?
RawRecruit prioritizes primary-source data over self-reported or crowdsourced information. Every college roster record comes from official athletic department records. Every high school is matched to a verified federal NCES identifier. Campus and financial data comes from federally mandated institutional reporting (IPEDS, College Scorecard). We cross-reference data across multiple sources and flag records that fail quality checks.
How often is RawRecruit's data updated?
Roster and coaching staff data is refreshed on a monthly cycle during the academic year. Federal datasets (IPEDS, College Scorecard, NCAA APR and GSR) are updated annually when new releases become available. High school pipeline statistics are recomputed on a rolling 5-year window. Each school profile includes a data freshness indicator.
What is the RawRecruit Fit Score and how does it work?
The Fit Score is a 0 to 100 composite score that measures how well an athlete matches a specific college program. It evaluates five dimensions: Athletic Fit (physical profile vs. current roster), Academic Fit (academics vs. school admissions), Positional Need (roster openings at your position), Geographic Proximity (recruiting footprint alignment), and Cultural Fit (campus environment and student-athlete culture). The weighting algorithm is proprietary, but all five dimensions contribute to every score.
Does RawRecruit use self-reported or crowdsourced data?
No. RawRecruit does not rely on self-reported athlete profiles or crowdsourced rankings for its core recruiting intelligence. All roster data comes from official college athletic department records. All institutional data comes from federal databases (IPEDS, College Scorecard, NCES). All academic performance data comes from NCAA official reports. This primary-source approach makes the Fit Score more reliable than platforms that depend on user-submitted information.
What federal databases does RawRecruit use?
RawRecruit uses four federal data sources: NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) for high school identification and institutional data, IPEDS (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System) for college enrollment, demographics, and campus characteristics, the College Scorecard for financial outcomes and net price data, and NOAA climate data for campus environment classification. These are the same databases used by the U.S. Department of Education for official educational statistics.
How does RawRecruit rank high school feeder programs?
RawRecruit computes high school feeder rankings using a percentile-based tier system. Every U.S. high school with at least one verified college placement is evaluated per sport and per division level (FBS, FCS, D1, D2, D3, NAIA, JUCO) based on verified placements over a rolling 5-year window. Schools in the top 2% earn an Elite rating, top 10% earn Strong, top 25% earn Rising, and all others with at least one placement earn Emerging. Football is the only sport that separates FBS and FCS as distinct division tiers.
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Every Fit Score you see is powered by the verified data described on this page. Federal databases. Official athletic records. NCAA academic reports. Your personalized matches start with a 60-second profile.
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Last updated April 2026. Data sources cited on this page are publicly verifiable through their respective federal agencies. For questions about our methodology, contact [email protected].