About
Every course is a node and every prerequisite is an edge, so you can see what a course opens up, trace a route to one you want to take, and plan a few semesters out without reading the catalog cover to cover. 156 universities are on it today.
Every school also has a campus side, with a map of what is happening today and a feed that carries events, club posts and the student paper in one place. Clubs and student organizations get their own pages, run by the students in them. Cam, the assistant, answers questions about your own catalog, and signing in with your school email gets its full answers.
Find your way through the catalog. Every school on CourseTrees has a catalog you can actually browse. Courses are grouped by department and level, with ratings and grades where the school publishes them. The Explore map draws the same catalog as a graph, so instead of scrolling a list you can wander around and see how courses connect.
See what a course unlocks. Open any course and you can see the prerequisites behind it and the courses it opens up ahead. Some courses unlock far more than others, and the Gateways list inside Explore ranks them by exactly that. It's a good way to figure out what's worth taking early.
Plan a path. Tell the Planner where you want to end up and it traces the prerequisites that get you there, sorted into terms so nothing lands before a course it depends on. You can import your transcript to mark what you've already taken, and check your progress toward a concentration. It's a guide, so check any plan against the official catalog before you register.
See campus life. Each school has a campus side too. There's a feed of what's happening, student orgs and events, and campus news that links straight to the paper that wrote each story. Coverage varies by school, and a page only shows what we actually have for that campus.
How it works. We read each school's public course catalog with automated tools, turn the prerequisite text into a graph, and add public grade and rating data where a school shares it. The longer story of what we collect and why is on our data ethics page.
Brown · Math–CS and Physics · ’28
Co-founder & CEO
I am a full-stack developer studying Math–CS and Physics (Brown '28). This fall I'm working as a Campus Lead for OpenAI, and outside of class I enjoy reading, hiking, astronomy, and tinkering with electronics.
Brown · APMA–CS · ’28
Co-founder & CTO
I'm a junior at Brown, Class of 2028, from New Jersey (the greatest state!!) studying APMA–CS. I have experience in both front-end and back-end web development for academic, professional, and personal projects. I enjoy quiz bowl, chess, speedcubing, playing badminton, and wandering around campus.
Boston College · Applied Psychology and Human Development
Marketing coordinator
I'm a junior at Boston College from Newton, MA. I'm majoring in Applied Psychology and Human Development, with minors in Marketing and Political Science. I enjoy sports, music, literature, and learning more about the world around me.
UCLA · Business Economics
Campus representative
I'm currently a junior at UCLA studying Business Economics.
Michigan · Data Science and Mathematics
Campus representative
I am a University of Michigan student studying Data Science and Mathematics. I love sports analytics, and I worked on a project with the Michigan Hockey team this past year. I also love running, playing/watching soccer, and trivia.
Case Western · Data Science, Economics, and Business Analytics
Strategic advisor
I'm a junior at Case Western Reserve University studying Data Science, Economics, and Business Analytics (BS/MS). In my spare time, I compete on the rowing team and hike in Cuyahoga Valley.
This opens an email to coursetrees@gmail.com with four questions in it. Tell us your school, what you study, and what you want to work on.
Questions, ideas, partnerships, or want CourseTrees at your university? We'd love to hear from you. If your school has a public course catalog, we can add it.
Spot a mistake? Catalogs are messy and parsers are imperfect. If a course title, prerequisite, or offering looks wrong, email coursetrees@gmail.com or use the Report an issue button inside any course detail panel. Both reach the same inbox.
CourseTrees includes 156 schools, all gathered from public sources. Coverage varies by school. Some have a full prerequisite graph and years of offering history. Others currently have only the course catalog. Each school shows you what it has as you explore it. Want us to add your university, or spotted something wrong about your school? Email us.
We want CourseTrees to be usable by everyone, on any device. We aim to follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1 AA). The interface is keyboard navigable and works with screen readers, the text is high-contrast for long reading sessions, we respect your system's reduced-motion setting, and the layout scales from phones to large displays. The dense graph is paired with a text-based course list, so you can get the same information without relying on the visual map.
Languages. CourseTrees is available in 9 languages, switchable from the language picker on the Explore map. We're adding more. If you want your language supported (or spot a translation we can improve), just email us and we'll prioritize it.
Accessibility is never “done.” If you hit a barrier using CourseTrees (with a screen reader, keyboard, magnifier, or anything else), please tell us at coursetrees@gmail.com and we'll work to fix it.
CourseTrees is independent and student-built, not affiliated with or endorsed by any university. It is free to explore, and optional paid plans may be offered in the future. CourseTrees will never sell data or paywall public catalog data. Public course catalogs are the foundation. Where more than that is public, we also show published grade distributions, student-reported grade distributions from course-feedback surveys labeled “Student-reported,” and public ratings and community feedback. Catalogs are read by automated tools, and every course page has a way to report a mistake. CourseTrees is for verified students: you sign in with your school email and you see your own campus. The account data we store is described in our privacy notice.
CourseTrees is a study aid rather than an advising tool, so confirm requirements with your registrar before you register.
The community surfaces on CourseTrees are moderated, and anyone, with or without an account, can report content for removal at /report-content. What's prohibited, how fast we act (including the 48-hour legal deadline for removing intimate imagery shared without consent), and how to appeal a decision are all published in our moderation & takedown policy.