Trying to understand how demonstrated interest factors into a college/university you're considering?  Then check out our list of institutions where demonstrated interest is deemed important or very important.  

To compile the list, we've identified every school in our coverage universe where the Common Data Set entry for "level of applicant's interest" is reported as important or very important.  Note that the Common Data set defines four options—very important, important, considered and not considered—and that inconsistencies are likely to exist in the way colleges define these terms.  

Nevertheless, the list remains a great way to get a better sense for where visiting a campus (virtually), taking advantage of an optional interview or completing an optional essay prompt may more strongly weigh on your candidacy for admission. 

Click on Continue Reading for the list. 

Wellesley announced yesterday that it admitted 16 percent of applicants to the Class of 2024.  

A total of 7,920 applications were received, up 20 percent from the previous year.

Click here for the news release.

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.

Given how sophisticated colleges have become in recruiting applicants, it's dangerous to rely on old admissions data.  

We've taken a look at our coverage universe and identified schools with notable admission rate differences between the Class of 2024 and the Class of 2023. In addition to providing the admission rates, we've included some commentary to explain why as well as a link back to the source article.

This year's notable changes are largely about rising admission rates, thanks to COVID-19 uncertainty and expanding enrollment at several University of California campuses. Declines in admission rates were observed at Boston College and the University of Virginia thanks to new Early Decision options that accounted for 37 and roughly 19 percent of the incoming class.

Depending on how you categorize schools, the admission rate change may be enough to turn a likely into a target or target into a reach.  Regardless, take a moment to review the list—the last thing anyone needs at this point is a surprise!

College Kickstart subscribers: Class of 2024 admission rates have already been incorporated into the latest release of College Kickstart.

Click Continue Reading for the list.

Cornell admitted 10.7 percent applicants to the Class of 2024.  

A total of 51,500 applications were received this year, up approximately 4 percent year over year. 

Click here for the news release.

In search of schools with no extra Common App essays?  Look no further, check out our list of popular schools here, updated for the 2020-21 application season.  

The list includes schools that simply require the base essay (e.g. personal statement). Keep in mind that many of these schools may have "optional" prompts which you might want to complete anyway to strengthen your application.  

If you're a student or parent with a College Kickstart Plus or Premium subscription, this information is already available to you as part of our application requirements tracking feature.

Click on Continue Reading for the list.

Hot off the press!  We've had a chance to review the Fall 2020 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 up for residents, out of state and international students across the board thanks to a 10 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.

For those of you who have been waitlisted at one of your top choices, here's a list of 2019 waitlist statistics for several popular private and public schools, along with notification dates and latest status where available.  

Our sample of waitlist statistics from 132 private and public institutions paints the following picture:

• The number of students admitted from the waitlist more than doubled year over year from 9,882 in 2018 to 21,180 in 2019

• On average, 15 percent of students accepting a place on a waitlist were admitted in 2019, up from 7 percent in 2018

• 48 percent of the schools admitted 10 percent or less of the students accepting a place on the waitlist last year (vs. 70 percent in 2018)

• 27 percent of the schools admitted 5 percent or less (vs. 44 percent in 2018)

• 7 percent admitted no one (vs. 12 percent in 2018)

Given the uncertainty caused by COVID-19, we fully expect the rise in waitlist activity to continue for 2020 (Class of 2024).

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

Click Continue Reading for the list.

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.

Wesleyan University announced it admitted 19.8 percent of applicants to the Class of 2024.  

A total of 2,531 students were admitted from a pool of 12,752 applications.

Click here for the news release.

The University of Notre Dame announced that 3,507 applicants were admitted to the Class of 2024.  

A total of 21,270 applications were received this year, resulting in an overall admission rate of 16 percent. The University is targeting an enrollment of 2,050.   

Click here for the news release.

Vanderbilt University reported that it admitted 2,907 applicants to the Class of 2024 under regular decision.

A total of 32,376 regular decision applications were received, resulting in a regular decision admission rate of 9.0 percent.

Click here for article.

The University of Chicago announced that it admitted 6.2 percent of applicants to the Class of 2024.  

Applications totaled 34,400, slightly below the 34,648 applications received from the previous year.  

Click here for the news release.

Columbia University announced it admitted 6.1 percent of applicants to the Class of 2024.

2,465 applicants were admitted from a total pool of 40,203 applications.

Click here for details.