Here's a refreshing New York Times post from Rebecca Sabky, a former admissions director at Dartmouth, about looking beyond academic credentials and extracurriculars for a fundamental human quality in applicants: kindness!

There are many ways to get a great education, and not all of them require that you attend a brand-name institution.  Here's a post from Will Dix at Forbes that suggests five strategies for uncovering opportunities at well-regarded but lesser known institutions that can provide you an excellent education at an affordable price.

Still looking for ideas on how to write a compelling admissions essay? Then check out this set of essays that worked, courtesy of Tufts admissions.

This blog post includes successful responses for all of the essay prompts included by Tufts, as well as some video commentary on why each one proved compelling to the admissions team.

Click here for the essays.

For those of you curious about how admission decisions are made, here's an interesting article from Business Insider on the Ivy League admissions process. Excerpted from a talk given by Nelson Urena, a former admissions officer at Cornell University, it outlines the typical steps that are taken from the time the application is submitted to the time the decision is rendered.  

The shift to test-optional admission continues to build.  This article from the New York Times highlights several reasons for the shift and reviews the results from several studies, often conflicting, on its impact.  Some suggestions for when to consider applying test optional are also made.

Click here for the article.

Still looking for ideas on how to write a compelling admissions essay? Then check out our latest set of essays that worked, courtesy of Tufts admissions.

This blog post includes five essays, as well as video commentary on why each one proved compelling to the admissions team.

Click here for the essays.

We're thrilled to announce our partnership with Alliance College-Ready Public Schools to bring better college planning to inner city youth.  As a result of the agreement, nearly 2,000 rising high school seniors and counselors across 15 Alliance high schools in the Los Angeles area will put College Kickstart to work for college planning.  

Click on Continue Reading for the details.

Here's a useful series of articles from the Washington Post for those of you about to embark on the college admissions process.  It chronicles the admissions journey of a high school senior, Samantha Fogel, and includes perspectives from her high school counselor as well as parents.  

1. Getting started
2. Parenting the college applicant
3. The search process
4. Deciding where to apply first
5. How not to bomb the college essay 
6. Dealing with deferral
7. Making the college decision

For those of you looking for possible admission essay topics, here are seven about work and class that caught a college's eye.  

Click here for the article

The National Association for College Admissions Counseling released its 2014 State of College Admissions report last Thursday.  

We had an opportunity to review the 72 page report and took away some key points about overall application and early admission trends.  

The findings strongly reinforce the need for students and families to actively evaluate early admission opportunities as an integral part of their college plan.  

Click on Continue Reading below for the summary.

"Where You Go is Not Who You'll Be" by Frank Bruni is a book that every stressed out rising senior or parent should read.

It's a quick, entertaining and grounding read about not getting too caught up in the madness of modern day college admissions.  It makes the point that brand name schools turn out to mean very little when it comes to success in life, and that there are countless examples of successful people who started from humble educational backgrounds. 

It's not where you start, it's how you finish!

Click here for the Washington Post review

Click here for the New York Times Sunday Book Review. 

This article from the Wall Street Journal explores the "value" of attending a name-brand college from three perspectives: the applicant's, the and the employer's and an admissions expert.  The article also includes a list of "best value" schools courtesy of PayScale that considers return on investment (future reported salaries) in addition to cost.  

Click here to read the article now.