ACADEMICS ACTIVITIES ATHLETICS

See Your Potential

The SDA Compass is a personalized recruiting report that evaluates your academics, swimming, and overall profile against the schools on your list. It shows where you are a strong fit, where you need a push, and what could improve your position.

Build My Compass Try the free calculator ↓
Know where you stand

What You Will Learn

A complete recruiting picture, showing how each part of your profile contributes to your overall fit.

Academic position

How your academics compare with the level of schools you’re targeting.

Athletic position

Your current level compared with the programs and conferences you’re targeting.

Event benchmarks

Where your key events sit now in select conferences — and where realistic progression could take them.

Target schools

Which programs appear to offer the strongest overall recruiting opportunity.

School-by-school read

Every School Tells a Different Story

The same athlete can look very different across one school list.

Strong fit

Your profile aligns well.

Competitive across the factors that matter most for this program.

Academic position · Athletic fit · Event strengths
Strong potential

There is a realistic path.

Several pieces fit, but one or more areas still need to move.

Current strengths · Main gap · Development potential
Stretch

A tougher target today.

We show why — and what would need to change for the picture to improve.

Primary constraint · Required improvement · Opportunity
Requested Schools

Your school list is part of the analysis.

Tell us which programs matter to you, and we’ll include personalized reads for those schools in your Compass.

Included in your report
What can you change?

Know Where Your Effort Matters

We identify the improvements most likely to strengthen your recruiting position.

Academics

Testing, course rigor, grades and academic positioning.

Athletics

Target times, specific events, progression and versatility.

School strategy

Where to push, where to broaden and where your profile already works.

Take the next step

Want to make your profile stronger?

Our advising packages give you personalized guidance to help close the gaps identified in your Compass.

Explore SDA Packages
What we do

How We Build Your Compass

Our team turns your academic, athletic, and broader student profile into a clear recruiting picture, then identify where the strongest opportunities may be.

How it works
1

Build your profile

Fill out our questionnaire and talk with a partner so we can understand your broader student-athlete profile.

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2

Benchmark it

Using our proprietary algorithm, we compare your profile with target programs and identify where you may be a strong fit.

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3

Find the opportunity

See where you fit, what is holding you back, and where improvement matters most.

Free academic tool Curious where you stand academically? Get a quick estimate of your academic positioning with our free Academic Index calculator. Try the Free Academic Index Calculator
Try it

Calculate Your Academic Index

Enter your GPA and test score for a quick and comprehensible academic read.

The free online calculator reads academic scores only — not your full academic profile.

What the Academic Index counts
3.70
2.04.0
1300
8001600
Where you are sending your test score

Your Academic Index is the same at every school. However, whether it makes sense to actually send your test score varies. To answer this, we compare your scores to the middle 50% of the students that a school actually enrolls. Pick National average instead to see where your score sits among everyone who took the test.

How the number is worked out

Your GPA becomes a score from 20 to 80. Your SAT is divided by 10, which gives 40 to 160. We then add them which yields your Academic Index, somewhere between 60 and 240.

When test scores are not provided, we estimate them by slightly scaling down test scores from students who have your GPA.

Everything here runs in your browser. Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere.

Academic Index dial, 60 to 240
205
Academic Index
60240

Right in the range these schools usually admit.

Strong — within the common admitted-student range

Your test score raises your Academic Index
With your test score205
Without your test score189

Should you send your test score?
Choose a school

GPA converted
0
Test score converted
0

The Academic Index is your GPA and your test score, converted and added together. Nothing else goes in.

The Ivy League and NESCAC have never published their formula. This is our own model, built from the variables they do use: unweighted GPA and SAT or ACT. Test-score inputs use published College Board and ACT scales, concordance tables, and national percentiles, while school ranges use each institution’s published 25th and 75th percentiles. The GPA conversion is our own reconstruction.

Your Academic Index is only part of the picture

The Full SDA Compass

The paid Compass combines a much wider set of metrics to show your overall recruiting position.

Free calculator

Academic snapshot

  • GPA
  • SAT / ACT
  • Academic Index
  • Test-score positioning
SDA Compass

Get Your Athlete’s Compass

A personalized recruiting assessment built from your athlete’s complete profile.

  • Academic and athletic recruiting assessment
  • Event-by-event performance benchmarking
  • School-by-school recruiting fit
  • Strengths, gaps and improvement opportunities
  • Personalized review of your target schools
$275
one-time · per athlete
Purchase the Compass

Complete the athlete questionnaire, review and accept the terms, then pay securely through Stripe.

or
Book a free 15-minute call

Already working with SDA? The Compass is included in the Base and Premium packages.