Methodology and data sources
- Page last updated October 25, 2026
How Registered Trade Schools is built. We publish public data with retrieval dates — not invented rankings.
Sources in this build
- Registered apprenticeship sponsors: U.S. Department of Labor Office of Apprenticeship Partner Sponsors CSV. Retrieved October 25, 2026. 46,655 organizations after cleaning and dedupe.
- Guides & counselor handouts: Plain-language explainers with links to .gov sources. Not career or legal advice.
- Trade school certificates & associates: U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard Field of Study + Institution files (CREDLEV 1|2, currently operating). Retrieved October 25, 2026. 2,826 institutions / 14,606 programs across 49 published states (≥8 institutions). Not VA WEAMS and not FMCSA TPR. See Schools.
Also useful externally: apprenticeship.gov and CareerOneStop.
Coverage rules (INDEX_MIN)
We do not publish thin empty state pages. An apprenticeship state page requires at least 25 sponsors after cleaning. A state×trade page requires at least 8 keyword matches. A school state page requires at least 8 institutions; a school city page requires at least 8. Territories below the threshold are listed as not yet published on the relevant index.
How trade tags work
Apprenticeships: The DOL partner sponsors file does not include occupation codes. We apply keyword matches on organization names (e.g. “electric”, “plumb”, “hvac”) to build optional trade filters. These tags are a discovery aid only — always confirm the occupation with the sponsor. Personal contact names and emails from the CSV are not republished on HTML pages.
Schools: Trade tags map College Scorecard 4-digit CIP codes to common trade labels (for example CIP 46.03 → electrician). One institution can carry multiple tags when it reports multiple CIP programs. Confirm programs in the school catalog.
Editorial rules
- No “best schools,” star ratings, or fabricated outcome stats.
- Payment never changes who appears in the organic directory or in what order. Future paid slots (if any) will be clearly labeled.
- We disclose that this is not a government site on every page footer.
- Operator personal names are not published on the site.
- Brand and URLs do not use age-targeted words (no “young/youth/teen”).
Search & sitemaps
A sitemap is published at /sitemap.xml and linked from robots.txt. After each deploy we ping IndexNow (Bing and partners). Google Search Console property for this domain should use the sitemap URL https://registeredtradeschools.com/sitemap.xml once verified (DNS TXT already on the zone when present).
Corrections
Errors that differ from the official DOL file will be fixed in the next rebuild. Errors in the underlying DOL data must be corrected at the source. Use Contact for page or guide issues.