How we source our data

MedTechPath lists every accredited diagnostic medical sonography program in the United States. This page explains where each number comes from, what we leave out, and how to report a mistake.

1. The program list: CAAHEP

The list of programs comes from the CAAHEP "Find an Accredited Program" directory. CAAHEP (the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs) accredits sonography programs on the recommendation of the Joint Review Committee on Education in Diagnostic Medical Sonography (JRC-DMS). We include programs whose status is Initial or Continuing accreditation, which today is 397 programs.

From CAAHEP we take:

• institution and program name, city, and state;
• the award (certificate, diploma, associate, or bachelor's degree);
• the accredited concentrations (abdominal/OB-GYN, adult cardiac, pediatric cardiac, vascular, breast, musculoskeletal);
• whether CAAHEP lists the program as offering distance education;
• accreditation status and initial accreditation date;
• the official program website and outcomes page links.

Metro-area pages group programs whose CAAHEP address lies within about 60 km (37 miles) of a metro's principal city. A metro page is only built when it has at least 3 programs; program-type pages need at least 5.

2. Tuition, length, start terms, prerequisites, and outcomes: the school itself

Everything else is copied from the program's own website, its published outcomes page, or the college's official tuition page. Every value on a program page links to the exact page it came from.

• Tuition is shown only when the school publishes a total program tuition or total estimated program cost. If a school only publishes per-credit or per-semester rates, we quote that rate in the tuition notes and leave the total blank. We never multiply credits by rates ourselves.
• Program length is shown only when the school states it in months, weeks, or years.
• Credentialing pass rate, job placement, and retention are the outcomes JRC-DMS requires accredited programs to publish. We use the most recent reporting year shown and match the row to the program's concentration when the school reports by concentration (the abdominal-extended row for general programs). When one report covers several of a school's programs without separating them, or a school only publishes an institution-wide figure, we leave the program's outcomes blank rather than guess which program the numbers belong to.

When a school does not publish a value, or we could not confirm it on an official page, the site shows "Not published". We do not estimate, average, or fill gaps from third-party sites. Today, 117 of 397 programs have a published credentialing pass rate in our data, 57 have a published total tuition, and 137 have a stated program length.

3. Salary data

Sonographer salary pages use the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) estimates for occupation 29-2032, Diagnostic Medical Sonographers, as republished by the Department of Labor's O*NET OnLine. We show the published median and percentile wages for the nation, each state, and each metro area BLS reports. These are wages for all employed sonographers, not starting salaries for new graduates.

4. Verification dates

Each program page shows the date its data was last checked. Tuition, start dates, and outcomes change every year, so always confirm details with the program before you apply. We plan to re-check every program at least once per quarter and whenever CAAHEP updates its directory.

5. What we do with lead forms

Request-information forms are optional and do not change the data shown for any program. Directory tables are sortable by any column, and programs that do not publish a value sort to the bottom of that column. See our privacy policy for how form data is handled.

6. Found an error?

If you run a program or spotted something out of date, contact us with a link to the official page and we will correct it.