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Articles tagged with: College Kickstart

13 January 2016

College Kickstart for Students and Parents - What's New for 2016

Posted in College Kickstart, Product Announcements

college kickstart logoIn celebration of the new year, we've introduced several important refinements and a "premium" edition of College Kickstart for students and parents.  These refinements should make College Kickstart even easier to use, help ensure that schools of interest are likely to meet affordability constraints, and help you locate safety schools with generous merit packages.  

Click on Continue Reading below for more.

12 November 2015

Counselor Preview Update Now Available!

Posted in College Kickstart, Product Announcements

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We're pleased to announce an important new update for our Counselor Preview participants.  This update incorporates much of the great feedback you've provided in recent weeks as well as some new capabilities we think you'll find helpful:

  • A streamlined user experience
  • New modes of operation 
  • New financial aid capabilities
  • Expanded coverage universe

Click on Continue Reading for the details. 

15 September 2015

New College Kickstart 2015 Update Now Available!

Posted in College Kickstart, Product Announcements

Tracking Application Requirements with Ease

CK2015 200x174An update to College Kickstart 2015 has just been posted! 

In addition to Class of 2019 admission rate updates to our database, this release features an enhanced Plan Highlights page to help Plus Edition subscribers get organized and track admission requirements for the schools on their list.  If you're a Plus Edition subscriber, you'll now be able to see application requirements at a glance for all of the schools on your list, including testing, recommendations, interviews and most importantly, essay counts! 

Click on Continue Reading for the details. 

14 July 2015

College Kickstart 2015 Productivity Tips

Posted in College Kickstart

CK2015 200x174We've designed College Kickstart for ease of use, but there's plenty more under the covers for those looking for it.  In this blog post, we'll take you through five "hidden" features that can improve both your productivity and understanding of how College Kickstart does its thing:

  1. Bulk loading schools to your list
  2. Improving your list grade with MixFixer
  3. Finding additional school ideas with MixFixer
  4. Using popups for greater clarity
  5. Using the Plan Highlight page to get organized

08 July 2015

New College Kickstart 2015 Update Now Available!

Posted in College Kickstart, Product Announcements

CK2015 200x174An update to College Kickstart 2015 has just been posted! 

This release features a new Plan Highlights page to help you get organized and track admission requirements for each school on your list.  We've also added two new MixFixer™ filters to help you find safeties, targets and reaches with greater ease, and updated our database with the latest admission rates for University of California campuses.  

Click on continue reading for the details. 

02 July 2015

University of California Fall 2015 Admission Trends

Posted in Your College List, Perspectives

ucHot 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.

15 June 2015

New release of College Kickstart 2015 now available!

Posted in College Kickstart, Product Announcements

CK2015 200x174We're pleased to announce the latest release of College Kickstart 2015!  You'll notice faster performance, updated admissions data (including 2019 admission rates for several top schools), expanded school coverage, and for College Kickstart Plus users, over 200 department-specific admission rates across 34 public and private institutions.

Click on continue reading for the details. 

26 May 2015

Bringing Better College Planning to Inner City Teens

Posted in Perspectives

Our partnership with Alliance College-Ready Schools

 
College Kickstart and Alliance College-Ready Schools Team Up to Bring Better College Planning to Inner City Teens
 

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.

 

25 March 2015

The Problem of Undermatching

Posted in Perspectives

washpostHere's an interesting article from the Washington Post about "undermatching"—when low-income students with the ability to succeed at elite universities never apply or attend one.  Past studies have shown that as many as four in 10 in this pool choose not to attend an elite institution because they didn't apply or decided not to enroll.

Undermatching is a serious social issue impacting long-term economic equality and social mobility, but it's also one that can be avoided with better information and planning.  

Read the article here

 

27 February 2015

More High School Seniors Taking Early Admission to College

Posted in Early Admission, Perspectives

early admission article from the los angeles timesIn this Los Angeles Times article, Carla Rivera writes about the rising number of college applicants taking advantage of early admission programs to remove stress and uncertainty from the admissions process.

The article also looks at early admission from the school perspective, and why/why not schools choose to participate.  

With admission rates falling and the number of early admission programs on the rise, we maintain that every college applicant needs to at least consider the possibility of applying early.  It may not always be appropriate, but when it is, it's a valuable way of maximizing odds and minimizing wasted motion for simply applying 60 days earlier than normal.   

Read the early admission article now

 

07 February 2015

New College Kickstart 2015 release now available

Posted in College Kickstart, Product Announcements

Bulletproofing your college list gets even easier

NewMixFixer021015

 

We're pleased to announce the availability of College Kickstart 2015 release 1.1.  In addition to updated admissions data for 75+ schools, this release features a new and improved MixFixer™ to help you "bulletproof" your college list with ease.

What's a MixFixer?

MixFixer is the fastest and easiest way to set your college list up for success.  It kicks in once College Kickstart has graded your list and recommended ways to strengthen it.  MixFixer does three things:

  • It categorizes. MixFixer automatically categorizes every school in our database into safeties, targets and reaches based on school admission rates and your academic profile.  
  • It filters. MixFilter provides filters to help you quickly narrow down your choices.
  • It corrects. MixFilter helps you take corrective action by adding schools of interest to your list and re-running the analysis.  Improve that D- to an A in no time!

What's new?

This release includes several new filters that you've asked for, in addition to a new special filter that will help you locate "good value" schools:

  • Filter by school size.  You can now filter schools by the total undergraduate population.  Three options are offered: small (<2,500 undergrads), medium (2,500-10,000) and large (10,000+).
  • Filter by setting.  You can also filter by school setting: rural, suburban and urban.
  • Filter by geographical region. You can narrow down schools by geography, including the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, South, Midwest, Mountain and Pacific regions.
  • Filter by indebtedness.  Is a public school cheaper than a private school?  Not always, after you factor in financial aid.  One useful way to figure out bang for buck is to find schools that leave you with little debt after graduation.  In other words, schools that are either cheap to begin with our schools that are terrific with financial aid and in particular, scholarships/grants.  Our new indebtedness filter looks specifically for schools that on average leave those taking financial aid with less than $20,000 of debt at graduation.  That's all four years.  Check it out, you'll be surprised by the results!  

Getting Started

mixfixerlaunch

To access MixFixer, run Kickstart and simply click on the Find Safeties, Find Targets or Find Reaches button in the List Check tab.

 

07 January 2015

Introducing College Kickstart 2015

Posted in College Kickstart

CK2015 200x174College Kickstart 2015 is here!

Two editions are available in this year's lineup:

  • Standard Edition ($50/season), which includes support for lists of 6-12 schools from our database of 250+ top U.S. colleges and universities
  • Plus Edition ($70/season), which includes support for lists of 6-20 schools and an enhanced database of 400+ entities.  

Both editions continue to offer the same great features to help you put together a sensible college plan, and are available for less than the cost of an application. 

Learn more

02 December 2014

College Kickstart Productivity Tips

Posted in College Kickstart

college-kickstart-logoWe've designed College Kickstart for simplicity, but there's plenty more under the covers for those looking for more.  In this blog post, we'll take you through five "hidden" features that can improve both your productivity and understanding of how College Kickstart does its thing:

  1. Bulk loading schools to your list
  2. Improving your list grade with MixFixer
  3. Finding additional school ideas with MixFixer
  4. Using popups for greater clarity
  5. Putting commitment checkboxes to work

01 December 2014

College Kickstart and Naviance

Posted in Your College List, Perspectives

Turning data into action

naviance-thinkingaboutYou'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.

 

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