Transparency
How GradShore calculates its signals
GradShore combines public research and education data to support discovery. Its scores are comparison tools, not guarantees about admissions, funding, recruiting, or advisor quality.
Professor identity and field assignment
Professor records are anchored to OpenAlex identifiers and matched to institutions and research topics. ORCID identifiers are shown when available. A primary subfield is used for field-level comparison; it is a classification aid, not a claim that a professor works in only one area.
Funding health
Public NSF and NIH award records are matched to professor profiles. Active status is derived from award dates; the funding-health expiry color and subfield percentile are computed directly from those public records. This is a factual public-record signal, not proof of an open position: it excludes startup funds, training grants, internal/institutional funding, and some fellowships, and renewal of an active grant is never guaranteed. Confirm recruiting and funding with the professor, current students, and your written offer.
Influence rankings
Influence is calculated with PageRank over an in-field co-authorship graph. The score measures network centrality among covered researchers in that subfield. It should be read alongside publications, funding, research fit, and direct conversations with a lab—not as a measure of teaching or mentoring quality.
Rising Star signals
Rising Star labels combine career stage, active grants or breakout citation growth, publication growth, and change in network centrality. They are discovery signals for identifying researchers with recent momentum, not endorsements or predictions of future performance.
Program and department comparisons
IPEDS completions are program-level. GSS student-support and HERD expenditure data may be institution-field aggregates and are labeled as such. Missing, suppressed, and unmapped records remain explicit rather than being treated as zero.
Use the underlying evidence
Profile and program pages expose the source, date, and scope available for each signal. Review the original record and contact the department or professor before making an application decision.
Review data sources and limitations →