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Conjoint analysis
Ask a family what matters in a college and you will hear a tidy list. Watch them choose between real options and a different picture emerges. This tool presents a handful of head-to-head trade-offs — cost against prestige, earnings against location — and infers the weights you actually act on, so your college list reflects your true priorities.
Sample data, running live in your browser. The inferred weights are estimates, not guarantees.
Pick the college you'd actually prefer in each trade-off. Watch your Revealed preferencesWhat your actual choices show you care about, which can differ from what you say you care about. emerge on the right after every choice — then compare them to your Stated preferencesWhat you say matters to you when asked directly, as opposed to what your choices reveal. preferences, what you say would matter.
Conjoint analysisA research method that figures out what you really value by watching the trade-offs you make between whole options, instead of just asking you to rate features one by one. uncovers how someone truly weighs competing factors. Rather than asking “how important is cost?” — where nearly everyone says “very” — it presents realistic colleges that force trade-offs and infers your priorities from the choices you make.
Your Stated preferencesWhat you say matters to you when asked directly, as opposed to what your choices reveal. are what you say matters; your Revealed preferencesWhat your actual choices show you care about, which can differ from what you say you care about. are what your choices show matters. The two often diverge, and that gap is the interesting part — it makes for a more honest conversation about fit.
Each task pits hypothetical colleges against each other, varying six attributes (prestige/selectivity, net price, 10-year earnings, major strength, location, and size). From your picks we fit a simple multinomial-logit model and read off each attribute's relative importance.
If these were the only options, which would you choose?
How much each factor has swung your choices so far.
Make your first choice to see your preferences begin to emerge.
Before (or after) seeing your choices play out, declare how much you think each factor matters. Drag each slider.
Answer 3 more tasks to unlock the revealed-vs-stated comparison.
These are estimates, not guarantees. A short exercise over a handful of trade-offs gives a directional read on your priorities — a prompt for discussion, not a verdict.