How We Verify Program Data

Every program listing records its cost, eligibility, format, and application deadline from the program's official website. Deadlines are re-checked on a rolling cycle by an automated verifier that reads the official site, and changes go live only after human review. Each listing shows a "Last verified" date and whether that check was an admin review or an automated match.

The verification pipeline

A listing's facts pass through five stages before and after publication:

  • Sourcing — facts are recorded from the program's official site at listing time, with the official URL stored alongside.
  • Automated deadline checks — a verifier periodically re-reads the official site and compares the published deadline against ours, recording a match, a mismatch, or an unknown.
  • Human review — mismatches and suggested updates land in an admin queue; a human confirms against the official source before the live data changes.
  • Student reports — every program page has a "Report incorrect information" link feeding the same review queue.
  • Cycle rollovers — when a deadline passes, the listing says so honestly and shows the month the program typically reopens, instead of displaying a stale date as if it were live.

Freshness signals you can check

Every listing with a verified deadline shows a "Last verified on" date. An "admin reviewed" badge means a human confirmed the deadline (directly or by accepting a verifier suggestion); "automated check" means the verifier's last read of the official site matched our data.

Category pages and this site's counts are computed from the live database at request time — the numbers you see are never hardcoded copy.

Logos and identity

Program logos are collected from official sites and verified against the organization's domain before display; listings without a verifiable logo show a neutral initial tile rather than a guessed image. Logo provenance (source page, verification checks) is stored with each asset.

What verification can't promise

Programs change their own pages without notice, and a verification date is a statement about when we last checked — not a guarantee the fact hasn't changed since. Always confirm final details on the official program site before building plans around them; every listing links to it for exactly that reason.

If you find something wrong before we do, the report link on the listing is the fastest way to get it fixed.