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Atlas of Opportunity
Find your path to free opportunities
§ Methodology

How we vet opportunities.

Reviewed by the editorial team · Last updated June 30, 2026

Every program in the Atlas has been reviewed against a public rubric. Here's exactly what we check, where listings come from, and how we remove ones that break.

1. Where listings come from

  • Auto-discovery: A weekly job scans 90+ trusted source pages (university research offices, foundation grant pages, fellowship aggregators) and proposes new listings.
  • Community suggestions: Anyone can submit a program through /suggest. Submissions are reviewed manually.
  • Editorial additions: Programs we discover through reporting, counselor outreach, or alum recommendations.

2. The vetting rubric

Every program must pass all five checks before it is published:

  1. Real organization. Run by a verifiable nonprofit, university, government agency, or established company.
  2. Open to high schoolers. Grade eligibility is stated on the host's own page, not inferred.
  3. No-fee or transparent cost. If there's a fee, it's disclosed clearly and a fee waiver path is documented.
  4. Working application path. The link goes to a live application page or the host's program info page — not a dead aggregator.
  5. Last verified within 90 days. A human or our link checker confirmed the page resolves in the last quarter.

3. How we score competitiveness

The "competitiveness" label (Open · Selective · Highly selective) is inferred from a combination of historic acceptance rates (when publicly available), cohort size, and the depth of the application requirement (e.g. essays, recommendations, research proposals). We mark it explicit when the host publishes a number, and inferred otherwise.

4. Link health

A daily job checks every program's primary URL. If a link returns a hard 404 or 410 for two consecutive checks, the listing is hidden. If it's been broken for 30 days, it's removed and logged on the changelog.

5. What we don't list

  • Pay-to-play summer programs that exist primarily to monetize the college admissions race.
  • Recommendation-only "honor societies" that charge a membership fee for a line item.
  • Programs with opaque selection processes that won't disclose who they admit.
  • Anything that requires sharing financial information before showing eligibility.

6. Reporting an issue

Every program page has a "Report an issue" link. Reports go to a moderation queue reviewed within 7 days. See current resolution stats on the quality dashboard.

Questions about the methodology? Get in touch.