Unlike many other college search engines that consider only a few factors, mycollegelist.com takes into account more than 20 factors that represent subtle differences in admission policies from college to college. It is updated annually to reflect the most current data available from official government and college sources, and is also adjusted regularly to reflect seasonal and intra-seasonal shifts in cohort data and admission policy. It does not provide a specific percentage of likely admission because doing so is misleading. For example, a 6% chance of admission is effectively identical to a 0% chance of admission. Instead, we use four categories to characterize one's chance of admission: Very possible, possible, improbable, and highly improbable.

Furthermore, mycollegelist.com provides a "What if?" engine by which students can change their inputted values and see how the chances of admission change. For example, they can see how an increase in GPA, test scores, research outcomes, interview skills, and activities might improve their odds of admission.