With your college list more or less finalized, give some consideration to early admission—many schools offer it and can be a terrific way to boost odds and minimize wasted motion.  All you need to do is apply 45-60 days earlier than you normally would. 

Here's a list of competitive 4-year institutions offering early admission to applicants.  Depending on the school, these options range from Early Decision (binding) to Early Action (non-binding) and Restrictive Early Action (non-binding with restrictions on where else you can apply).  

The first wave of deadlines is coming up in November, so take a quick look to see if any of your schools offer something worth considering. Or click here to find out how College Kickstart can help you fully capitalize on it.

In search of colleges and universities with strong undergraduate international relations programs?

Courtesy of Foreign Policy magazine and the College of William & Mary, we've compiled their list of top 25 programs in the United States, along with admit rate and test score data to help you locate safety, target and reach schools to add to your list.  As always, we've also included a link to each school's websites to help you explore further.

The report also calls out Chinese and Arabic as the two most important languages for aspiring international relations majors to learn, and global climate change as the most important topic to contend with over the next ten years.

Click on Continue Reading for the list, or here for the Foreign Policy article. 

Money Magazine just released its college rankings for 2015-16. Over 1,500 schools were evaluated based on 21 factors along three dimensions: educational quality, affordability and post-graduation earnings. The result: 736 schools that deliver a great education at an affordable price, with good outcomes post graduation.

The top of the list:

• Stanford University
• Babson
• MIT
• Princeton
• Caltech
• Harvey Mudd
• Harvard
• Maine Maritime Academy
• Amherst
• Cooper Union
• University of California at Berkeley

Click here for the rankings or here for the methodology.

Hot off the press!  We've had a chance to review the Fall 2015 admissions data released earlier today by the University of California and thought it would be helpful to summarize it and our key findings.  

Long story short, overall freshman admission rates are down and its getting tougher for California residents as the University of California focuses on increasing the mix of "full pay" out of state and international students to hedge against budget uncertainty.  If you're an out of state or international student, pay close attention...there appears to be a window of opportunity to take advantage of favorable odds at several UC campuses.

Click on Continue Reading for the details.

In search of colleges with more intimate learning environments?

Look no further, we've identified 50+ schools that fit the bill.  To make the grade, each school has to have at least 70% of their classes with fewer than 20 students and a student/faculty ratio lower than 10:1.

The result: an eclectic mix of private liberal arts colleges and universities where teachers are more likely to know your name, including several institutions featuring tutorial-style or self-directed study programs.

We've included admission rates, mid-50th percentile SAT and ACT scores and links to each school's website to help you explore the possibilities.

Click on Continue Reading for the details. 

In search of schools that do a great job of keeping your interest and getting you graduated?  

Look no further, here's a list of 50 public and private institutions that do just that. To make the list, each institution has to have freshman retention and six-year graduation rates of 90% or better. 

Many of the schools listed will come as no surprise, but others—in particular the public institutions—will!  We've also included admit rates and mid-50th percentile SAT and ACT ranges to help you narrow down your choices.

If you're a California resident with financial need, don't assume that it's always cheaper to attend a University of California or Cal State University campus.

Depending on your academic credentials and financial situation, there may be many excellent private school options to consider. Read on to see our list of 50+ affordable alternatives to UC/CSU campuses.  

One interesting way to measure the value of a college education is to consider return on investment.  PayScale does this by comparing the salary of graduates (return) to the cost of attendance (investment) at each school it tracks.  

Here's the recently released 2015 rankings.  We'd focus less on the rankings themselves and more on the relative returns by major/career since it will give you a sense for where your interests can lead.  It comes as no surprise that schools strong in technology fare the best.    

Planning to major in business in college?  Here's an article covering some well-regarded undergraduate business schools for you to consider.  

The Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA recently published The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2014, a survey of 150,000+ first-time, full-time students at over 200 four-year U.S colleges and universities.

The study covers a broad range of topics, including college admissions.  What's clear is that students are applying to more schools than ever, they're getting into their top choice schools less frequently, and that early admission is becoming a very important consideration in choosing colleges.  

Click on the Continue Reading link below details.

You've used Naviance to come up with a list of colleges you're thinking about.  Excellent!   

Now what? 

In this age of single digit admission rates and $75 application fees, it's no longer as simple as "just apply to them all."  

College Kickstart helps you make the leap from "colleges I'm thinking about" to "colleges I'm applying to." Read on to find out how we turn the data you've collected into a sensible and actionable plan.

Need-blind schools do not take financial aid into consideration when making admissions decisions.  Knowing these schools can be invaluable for making sure you or your teen's application is getting maximum consideration with regard to financial aid.

Here we've compiled a list of private schools that practice need blind admission for full-time, first year, U.S. citizens and permanent residents.  Please note that not all of these schools offer financial aid to meet 100% of demonstrated need. Note also that the list isn't exhaustive—it's meant to cover the more competitive 4 year institutions in the nation.

This list is integrated into the latest update to College Kickstart. 

Need-Blind Schools

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.

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