Methodology

Where data comes from

Launchpad gathers opportunities from a curated set of trusted sources — official program pages first, reputable aggregators second. We prefer structured data (feeds, calendars, and embedded event metadata) over fragile page-scraping, and we link back to the official source for every listing.

Review before publish

Nothing imported is shown automatically. Every gathered opportunity starts as pending review and only becomes public after it clears our checks. Public pages show only reviewed, published opportunities — so the feed stays trustworthy rather than turning into a scraped directory.

Confidence score

Each opportunity carries a confidence score reflecting how reliable its source and how complete its data is — official, structured, and complete records score higher than sparse ones from aggregators. This is a measure of data quality, and is separate from the personal fit score the radar computes for you.

Verification & freshness

A listing's “Last verified” date means exactly that: the moment a person or our daily checker last confirmed the listing against its official source. If a listing was never checked, it says “Never verified”— we don't pretend otherwise. Every day we re-check published listings against their sources; when a source contradicts what we show, the listing is pulled from public view until a human resolves it.

Deadlines are time bombs, so they defuse automatically: once a (non-rolling) deadline passes, the listing leaves the public shelf the same day, and its page is marked applications closedrather than quietly pretending to be open. A listing can't be published at all with a past deadline, an unverifiable date, or a deadline we haven't confirmed recently.

Always verify

We aggregate public information and summarize it in our own words; details can change. Always confirm dates, eligibility, and requirements on the official page before applying. Found something wrong or out of date? Let us know.