Wondering if it's possible to tour some campuses over the summer?  Then check out our list of top colleges offering on-campus visits.

We've taken the top 50 national universities and top 50 liberal arts colleges from the latest U.S. News rankings and identified those currently open for on-campus visits.  With vaccinations in full force and cases on the decline, many have resumed in-person campus tours.

Unsurprisingly, most of the institutions open for visits have safe practices in place, so make sure you've satisfied the requirements prior to visiting. Also take note that most tours are now limited to just a few families per tour so it's best to sign up as early as possible.  For your convenience, we've included a links to schedule your tour/information session directly.

College Kickstart subscribers: there are now over 500 schools in our coverage universe currently open for prospective student visits and they are now visible in the Summary View, along with links to schedule your visit.

Bookmark this page, as we'll be updating it frequently over the next several weeks as the colleges update their summer visit plans.  

Click Continue Reading for the list.

Hot off the press!  We've had a chance to review the Fall 2021 admissions data released recently by the University of California and thought it would be helpful to summarize it and share our key findings.  

Overall freshman admission rates are down for residents, out of state and international students across the board thanks to test-blind admissions and an 18 percent year-over-year rise in total admits. If you're an out of state or international student, pay close attention...there continues to be a window of opportunity to take advantage of favorable odds at several UC campuses.

Click on Continue Reading for the details.

Honors programs are a terrific way for academically talented students to reap the benefits of a liberal arts education within the context of a large research institution.

To give you a better sense for how this can enrich your college experience, we’ve compiled a list of undergraduate honors programs from top public and private universities across the nation. We've included admission profiles where available, program benefits, whether an extra application is required and a link to each institution's offering for more details.

Click on Continue Reading to see our list of top undergraduate honors programs now.

For those of you who have been waitlisted at one of your top choices, here's a list of 2020 waitlist statistics for several popular private and public schools, along with notification dates and latest status where available.  

Our sample of waitlist statistics from 100 private and public institutions paints the following picture:

• The number of students admitted from the waitlist rose 97 percent year over year from 22,223 in 2019 to 43,867 in 2020

• On average, 29 percent of students accepting a place on a waitlist were admitted in 2020, up from 18 percent in 2019

• 33 percent of the schools admitted 10 percent or less of the students accepting a place on the waitlist last year (vs. 48 percent in 2019)

• 17 percent of the schools admitted 5 percent or less (vs. 29 percent in 2019)

• 3 percent admitted no one (vs. 8 percent in 2019)

These results come as no surprise given the uncertainty brought on by the pandemic last cycle. That said, we strongly caution against assuming a similar level of waitlist activity this cycle as much of this uncertainty is now behind us and most schools are resuming normal operations.

Be sure to bookmark this page as we expect to be updating status over the next several weeks.

Click Continue Reading for the list.

Want to gain valuable career skills and work experience during college? If so, you may want to consider a cooperative education program, or co-op.

Co-ops are fantastic opportunities for students to apply their classroom knowledge to hands-on job experiences. Through co-ops, students balance classroom learning with practical work experience related to careers of their interest. Co-ops allow students to earn money, build their resume, learn useful skills, and boost their employability.

To help you explore your options, we have curated a list of strong co-op programs at schools across the nation. Covering a wide variety of institutions, the following list features the admission profiles, program types, academic areas, and more related to these schools' co-op programs.

Click on Continue Reading to see our list of great undergraduate co-op programs nationwide.

Interested in studying “the skill of the century” and accessing a global market that is worth over $300 billion? Look no further than artificial intelligence (AI) and check out our latest list of colleges with strong undergraduate AI programs in the United States.

The term “artificial intelligence” was coined as early as 1956 and refers to the broad concept of making it possible for machines to perform human-like tasks, such as solving problems, making decisions, understanding language, and processing sounds and images. However, AI only became increasingly popular recently, and along with this rise in popularity came spikes in investment, which led to rapid growth in the AI industry.

Studying AI prepares students to solve problems across a variety of fields and introduces them to a huge job market that continues to expand today. Drawing from U.S. News, TechTarget, CSRankings, Computer Science Degree Hub, Great Value Colleges and Value Colleges, we've curated a list of some of the top undergraduate programs in artificial intelligence across the nation. This list also covers information about the overall admission rates and profiles, offered AI programs, curriculum, and research opportunities and facilities for each listed institution.

Click on Continue Reading to see our list of top undergraduate AI programs nationwide.

Here's our initial list of reported overall admission rates for the Class of 2025. Results are now available for Amherst College, Barnard, Boston College, Boston University, Bowdoin, Brigham Young, Brown, Bucknell, Chapman, Claremont McKenna, Colby, Colgate, Colorado College, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Davidson, Duke, Elon, Emory, Fordham, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Hamilton, Harvard, Haverford, Johns Hopkins, Lehigh, Macalester, Middlebury, MIT, Northeastern, Northwestern, Notre Dame, NYU, Oxford at Emory, Princeton, Rice, Swarthmore, Tufts, Tulane, University of Florida, University of Georgia, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, University of Virginia, Vanderbilt, Vassar, Villanova, Washington & Lee, Washington University in St. Louis, Wellesley, Wesleyan, Williams and Yale.  Latest year application totals are available for many more.

Bookmark this page as we'll update frequently as more institutions report results. 

Click Continue Reading for the list.

Haverford College announced it admitted 17.8 percent of applicants to the Class of 2025.  

A total of 5,336 applications were received this year, up 17.5 percent for the year.    

Click here for the article.

Wesleyan University announced it admitted 19.4 percent of applicants to the Class of 2025.  

A total of 2,544 students were admitted from a pool of 13,145 applications.

Click here for the article.

Bowdoin College announced it admitted 8.8 percent of applicants to the Class of 2025.  

A total of 9,325 applications were received for the year.   

Click here for the article.

Northwestern University admitted 6.8 percent of applicants to the Class of 2025.  

In total, 47633 applications were received. 

Click here for the news release.

Cornell admitted 5,863 applicants to the Class of 2025.  

Over 67,000 applications were received this year, resulting in an acceptance rate of approximately 9 percent. 

Click here for the news release.

Dartmouth announced today that it accepted 1,749 applicants to the Class of 2024.  

Applications totaled 28,357 for the year, resulting in an overall acceptance rate of 6.2 percent.

Click here for the news release.

Columbia University announced it admitted 3.7 percent of applicants to the Class of 2025.

2,218 applicants were admitted from a total pool of 60,551 applications.

Click here for details.

Yale announced today that it admitted 2,169 applicants to the Class of 2025.

A total of 46,905 applications were received this year, resulting in an overall admission rate of 4.6 percent. 

Click here for the article.