Here's our latest list of reported early decision and early action admission rates for the Class of 2025.

This list includes results from Amherst College, Boston College, Boston University, Brown, Colgate, Colorado College, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, Notre Dame, Providence College, Rice, University of Georgia, University of North Carolina, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, Vanderbilt, Villanova, Williams and Yale.

Bookmark this page, as we'll be updating it frequently over the next several weeks.

Click Continue Reading for the list.

Here's our updated list of early decision and early action notification dates for the Class of 2025.  As many of you know, schools often post results in advance of their "official" notification dates, so we've compiled the most recently updated dates for you here where available, as well as last year's notification dates for reference.   Bookmark this page, as we'll be updating it frequently over the next 30 days.

Good luck, seniors!

If you're in the hunt for merit scholarships, be sure to stay on top of explicit deadlines a school on your list might have.

In some cases, like Boston University and the University of Richmond, it's a hard deadline that you have to meet in order for you to be considered at all.  In others, like Indiana University and many other public institutions, it's a "priority" deadline that maximizes your chances of merit aid before the money runs out.  Either way, merit aid continues to be an excellent way for good students to defray the cost of an education.  

We've compiled a sampling of schools in our coverage universe with explicit deadlines, along with some stats to help you gauge the size and breadth of the institution's merit offerings.  We've also included links to each school's scholarship page for easy access to the details.

Most of these schools automatically consider you for merit scholarships without the need for an additional application.  

College Kickstart subscribers: full listings of 2020-21 explicit merit scholarship deadlines and schools with generous merit aid are already incorporated into the product.

Click on Continue Reading below for the list.

Here's our initial list of reported early decision and early action admission rates for the Class of 2024.

This list includes results from Barnard, Boston College, Boston University, Brown, Colby, Colgate, Colorado College, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Emory (Oxford), Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Lafayette, Middlebury, MIT, Providence College, Rice, Santa Clara, University of Georgia, University of Notre Dame, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, Vanderbilt, Villanova, Washington University in St. Louis, Wesleyan, William & Mary and Yale.

Bookmark this page, as we'll be updating it frequently over the next several weeks.

Click Continue Reading for the list.

U.S. News & World Report released their 2021 college rankings earlier today.  Over 1,400 schools were covered nationwide and evaluated on multiple measures of academic excellence and outcomes to produce the final rankings.

This year's methodology includes consideration of new student debt metrics, social mobility and inclusion of test-blind institutions. The weighting of outcomes has also increased.

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

Click on Continue Reading to see the rankings changes. 

As we entered 2020, roughly one-third of the schools in our coverage universe offered some form of test-optional admissions. That figure cleared 70 percent in June and is now hovering at 90 percent with the holdouts largely in the South, particularly the public universities in Flordia and Georgia.

To help you keep up with the changes, we're actively tracking test-optional policies for several popular institutions we cover. As always, the definition of "test-optional" varies by institution and often has strings attached so pay close attention to the details.

Click on Continue Reading to see our list of test-optional schools and the type of test-optional policy they employ.  For your convenience, we've included admit rates, test score ranges and links to each school's standardized test policy to help you find suitable candidates for your college list.

College Kickstart subscribers, this is automatically updated and visible as part of the requirements view.

Combined BS/MD programs are available for talented high school seniors strongly committed to careers in medicine. Institutions offering combined BS/MD programs include Rice University, Northwestern University, Boston University and Case Western Reserve University.

To help you navigate your options, check out our list of combined BS/MD programs. We've included admission profiles where available, program lengths and features, as well as a link to each program's web page for the details.

Click on Continue Reading to see our list of combined BS/MD medical school programs now.

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.

Here's our initial list of reported overall admission rates for the Class of 2024. Results are now available for American University, Amherst College, Barnard College, Boston College, Boston University, Bowdoin, Brown, Caltech, Carleton, Colby, Colorado College, Columbia, Dartmouth, Davidson, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, George Washington University, Georgia Tech, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Macalester, Middlebury, MIT, NYU, Northeastern, Northwestern, Notre Dame, NYU, Oxford College at Emory, Princeton, Rice, Swarthmore, Tufts, Tulane, University of Chicago, University of Florida, University of Georgia, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, University of Virginia, Vanderbilt, Villanova, Washington University in St. Louis, Wellesley Wesleyan 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.

Here's our updated list of regular decision notification dates for the Class of 2024.  As many of you know, schools often post results in advance of their "official" notification dates, so we've compiled the most recently updated dates for you here, along with the notification dates from last year.  Bookmark this site, as we'll post updates often.

Good luck, seniors!

Boston University announced that it admitted 18.5 percent of applicants to the Class of 2024.  

Overall, 61,006 applications were received for a targeted class size of 3,100. 

Click here for the article.

The Coronavirus outbreak has caused many colleges and universities to cancel campus tours, information sessions and other admission-related activities.

To make life easier for you as you plan your spring break travel, here's the latest status on campus visit availability for several popular colleges and universities we cover.

As you know, the situation changes rapidly so bookmark this page as we'll be updated statuses regularly.

Click on Continue Reading below for the list.

Here's our updated list of early decision and early action notification dates for the Class of 2024.  As many of you know, schools often post results in advance of their "official" notification dates, so we've compiled the most recently updated dates for you here where available, as well as last year's notification dates for reference.   

Good luck, seniors!

If you're in the hunt for merit scholarships, be sure to stay on top of explicit deadlines a school on your list might have.

In some cases, like Boston University and the University of Richmond, it's a hard deadline that you have to meet in order for you to be considered at all.  In others, like Indiana University and many other public institutions, it's a "priority" deadline that maximizes your chances of merit aid before the money runs out.  Either way, merit aid continues to be an excellent way for good students to defray the cost of an education.  

We've compiled a sampling of schools in our coverage universe with explicit deadlines, along with some stats to help you gauge the size and breadth of the institution's merit offerings.  We've also included links to each school's scholarship page for easy access to the details.

Most of these schools automatically consider you for merit scholarships without the need for an additional application.  

College Kickstart subscribers: full listings of 2019-20 explicit merit scholarship deadlines and schools with generous merit aid are already incorporated into the product.

Click on Continue Reading below for the list.

In Part II of this series developed an early admission strategy based on your competitiveness as an applicant, your college list, and your strength of commitment to the top schools on your list.  If you're a competitive applicant with strong qualifications, we recommend that you:

• Take full advantage of Early Action for all the schools on your list

• Apply Restrictive Early Action to your top school or when the restrictions don't inhibit your ability to take advantage of early admission programs at higher ranked schools 

• Apply Early Decision I when you are strongly committed to attending your top choice school and have no concerns about affordability

• Apply Early Decision II if you have been denied admission to your top choice school, you're strongly committed to attending this ED II school as your next best option, and have no concerns about affordability

With this early admission strategy in place, let's put it to work in Part III against a couple of hypothetical applicants.