A few days ago we reported that over 90% of college lists initially submitted to College Kickstart needed improvement, and just about all of them (>90%) were too aggressive. Here are the top 5 reasons why and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you.

U.S. News & World Report released their 2015 college rankings earlier today.  Nearly 1,800 schools were covered nationwide and evaluated on multiple measures of academic excellence and outcomes to produce the final rankings.

Princeton retains sole posession of the top spot for National Universities, and Williams College tops the list of Liberal Arts Colleges.  

Click here for more. 

By now, most of you are quite familiar with the Common Application ("Common App").  And most of you that are applying to competitive institutions are painfully aware that there are often extra essay or short answer prompts to complete.

The good news is that this isn't always the case.  Recently we introduced a new feature in College Kickstart that identifies Common App schools that don't require additional essay or short answer prompts.

Put another way, these are schools that you can apply to easily once you've completed the core common app.  It's another useful way to narrow down your list choices, or to consider new ones that may be a good fit and don't require extra effort to submit.

Enjoy!

Note: the list isn't exhaustive—it's meant to cover the more competitive 4 year institutions in the nation.

The List

A new update to College Kickstart is now available.  This release introduces a new MixFixer™ capability that allows you to easily strengthen your list within a single screen.

MixFixer also includes some nifty filters to help you quickly identify schools that:

• Offer non-binding early action
• Practice need-blind admission
• Offer and automatically consider you for merit scholarships
• Do not require additional Common App essays to be submitted 

Money Magazine just released their inaugural list of "best colleges."

To come up with the list, they screened ~1,500 colleges based on educational quality, affordability and alumni earnings using data from the 2012-13 academic year.  At the top of the list is Babson College, followed by Webb Institute, MIT, Princeton and Stanford.

Click here for the article.

Applications are now available for University of California admissions. 

Click here to get the scoop.

Forbes released their 2014 version of America's Top Colleges last night.  650 schools are ranked, using a methodology that considers student satisfaction, post-graduate sucess, student debt, graduation rate and academic success. 

At the top of the list: Williams College, followed by Stanford, Swarthmore, Princeton and MIT.

Click here to check out the rankings.

Are Ivy League schools overrated?  William Deresiewicz, who taught at Yale from 1998 to 2008, sure thinks so: 

Click here to read his article in the The New Republic, entitled "Don't Send Your Kid to the Ivy League."

Thought this article really captured the "zeitgeist" of college admissions today.  There's a vicious cycle at work where teens see 5% admission rates at Stanford and Harvard, and 90,000+ applicants at UCLA and start to feel it's a crapshoot so they end up applying to more schools to hedge their bets.  Of course, this just makes admission rates worse and so the cycle continues.

Where did the days of 3 applications and a typewriter go? 

Click here to read the article.

Today Harvard announced that it accepted 2,023, or 5.9 percent of 34,295 students who applied for admission to the Class of 2018.  This number includes 992 students admitted through its early action program.

The admit rate for applicants considered under regular decision was 3.1%, compared to an admit rate of 21% for students who applied early action.

Click here for the news release.

Columbia University announced today that it admitted 2,291, or 6.94 percent of the 32,967 students who applied for admission to the Class of 2018.  

Click here for the news release.

This afternoon, Yale announced that it had admitted 6.26 percent of its applicant pool to the class of 2018.  A total of 1,935 students were admitted from an applicant pool of 30,932.  

Click here for the news release.

Princeton announced today that it admitted 1,939 students, or 7.28 percent of its applicant pool of 26,641 to the class of 2018.  Of the 1,939 admitted, 714 applied through single-choice early action and were admitted in December.

Click here for the news release.