We're putting the finishing touches on College Kickstart for Independent Consultants and thought we'd give you a sneak peek of what's in store for 2020, including expanded school coverage, new tags for hot majors, refined categorization and list grading, and an enhanced offering for large practices.

With 2020 right around the corner, we thought it was time to give you a sneak peek of some of the cool new capabilities we've got in store for rising seniors and parents this January.   

The University of Virginia announced today that it admitted 749 early decision applicants to the Class of 2024.  

A total of 2,157 early decision applications were received, resulting in an overall early admission rate of 35 percent.  The acceptances are expected to represent 20 percent of the targeted class size of 3,748 studenets.  

Click here for the news article.

The University of Georgia offered 7,025 early action applicants to the Class of 2024.

16,511 applications were received, resulting in an admit rate of 43 percent.  

Click here for the article.

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.   

In Part I of this series we covered the fundamentals of college early admission programs.  We learned that:

• Colleges offer early admission programs to manage yield, lock up prized applicants and improve prestige in the process

• There can be as much as a 2-4x difference in admit rates between early and regular decision applicants

• Because there is often a high proportion of an enrolled class coming through early admission, your chances of getting in via regular decision are actually worse than you might think

In short, you should always consider early admission programs as part of your college plan.  But under what conditions does it make sense and how do you apply it against your list of schools?  This is the topic for Part II.  

Simply put, early admission should always be considered as part of your college plan.

Why?  Because early action and early decision programs can be tremendously useful in helping a competitive candidate enhance admission odds.  By submitting your application early, you'll hear back earlier and in most instances improve your chances for admission.  Better yet, if you're accepted early, you'll be able to avoid the cost and effort of applying to schools of lower interest on your list.

In this three part series, we'll explore the fundamentals, when/how to take advantage of them, and where early admission is offered.  Read on for Part I.

All admissions data updates are now complete for the 2019 -20 application cycle. As always, we've enriched the data in several ways to make College Kickstart even more effective for you as you finalize your college plans.  This includes the incorporation of key 2019-20 admission plan changes and application requirements.  Better yet, we've also incorporated the latest reported Class of 2023 admission rates for several institutions we track, many of which have material year-over-year changes you probably don't want to be surprised by.

Click on continue reading for the details.

With the fall 2019-20 application cycle now in full swing, it's important to keep an eye on interview requirements for the schools on your list—especially if they're looking for evidence of demonstrated interest.  

To make this easier for you, we've compiled a list of popular schools where interviews are required or strongly recommended, along with the degree to which the institution considers demonstrated interest as part of the evaluation.  

In cases like Hillsdale College where interviews are highly recommended and demonstrated interest is very important, it's a good bet than an interview is worth your time.  On the flip side, if interviews are optional and demonstrated interest isn't considered, booking an interview is less critical.  The devil is in the details, so to help you figure out your strategy we've also included a link to each listed school's interview policy.  Do keep in mind that interview requirements may often vary by major.

College Kickstart subscribers: this information is already available to you in the Summary and Requirements views.

Click on 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 2023 and the Class of 2022. 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 primarily about falling admission rates with a smattering of rising rates at BYU and three University of California campuses.  For institutions with declining admission rates, much of this is attributable to year over year application growth and declines in admitted students.  While some institutions admitted fewer students to compensate for overenrollment the previous year, we suspect others have done so as a result of admitted higher proportions of applicants through early decision/early action programs. 

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 2023 admission rates have already been incorporated into the latest release of College Kickstart.

Click Continue Reading for the list.

U.S. News & World Report released their 2020 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.

Approximately 13 percent of institutions were reclassified to changes in the underlying Carnegie classification system in 2018.

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. 

Most schools have completed their updates for the Class of 2024 admission cycle (2019-20), and several of the changes we've observed are worth noting. 

In particular, 16 schools have modified early admission options available to applicants this fall.  Notable changes include the replacement of Early Action for Early Decision I/II at Boston College, the introduction of a new Early Decision I option at Howard University and the University of Virginia, and a new Early Action option at Union College.

If you're considering early admission, be sure to check out our list as it may impact how you decide to apply this fall.   Note to our subscribers: the data has already been incorporated into the product, simply re-run College Kickstart to see how it impacts your plan.

Click on Continue Reading below for the details.

In search of schools with no extra Common App essays?  Look no further, check out our list of popular schools here, updated for the 2019-20 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.

Tired of Googling constantly for the latest application requirements? Look no further — let College Kickstart help you stay on top of your game.