Landscape™: Consistent High School and Neighborhood Information for Colleges

Colleges consider many things when reviewing an applicant, including their GPA, personal essay, letters of recommendation, test scores, and more. They also consider what students achieved in the context of where they’ve learned and lived—their high school and neighborhood. This year, colleges will receive more than 10 million applications from students attending nearly 30,000 high schools. With more applications coming from more places, getting consistent, quality high school and neighborhood information for every applicant is becoming much more difficult. The result of using inconsistent information is that colleges can’t give everyone a fair look.

That's why we've worked for three years with admissions officers all over the country to develop Landscape™ (previously called the Environmental Context Dashboard), a resource for colleges that provides consistent high school and neighborhood information for all applicants to help admissions officers fully consider every student, no matter where they live. Landscape is just one of the many things that colleges look at when considering an applicant and does not replace the individual information included in an application, such as an applicant’s GPA, personal essay, or high school transcript.

After listening to thoughtful feedback from educators, students, and parents, we are making key changes to the resource, prioritizing clarity and transparency.

• Landscape no longer combines high school and neighborhood indicator numbers to create a single score. This was confusing and added to the misperception that the indicators are specific to an individual when they’re actually all general.
• We have posted detailed information about the data and methodology within Landscape on our website.
• Starting next year, high schools, students, and parents with a College Board account will be able to access the same information about their high school and neighborhood that colleges will see in Landscape.

To see more, including an explainer video, Landscape Appropriate Usage Guidelines, Landscape Data and Methodology, and Frequently Asked Questions, visit cb.org/landscape.