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 2021-22 explicit merit scholarship deadlines and schools with generous merit aid are already incorporated into the product.

Click on Continue Reading below for the list.

U.S. News & World Report released their 2022 college rankings yesterday.  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 adjusts for the decline in SAT/ACT test takers and continues to include test-blind institutions.

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. 

Wondering if it's possible to tour some campuses over the summer?  Then check out our list of top colleges offering on-campus visits.

We've taken the top 50 national universities and top 50 liberal arts colleges from the latest U.S. News rankings and identified those currently open for on-campus visits.  With vaccinations in full force and cases on the decline, many have resumed in-person campus tours.

Unsurprisingly, most of the institutions open for visits have safe practices in place, so make sure you've satisfied the requirements prior to visiting. Also take note that most tours are now limited to just a few families per tour so it's best to sign up as early as possible.  For your convenience, we've included a links to schedule your tour/information session directly.

College Kickstart subscribers: there are now over 500 schools in our coverage universe currently open for prospective student visits and they are now visible in the Summary View, along with links to schedule your visit.

Bookmark this page, as we'll be updating it frequently over the next several weeks as the colleges update their summer visit plans.  

Click Continue Reading for the list.

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.

For those of you who have been waitlisted at one of your top choices, here's a list of 2020 waitlist statistics for several popular private and public schools, along with notification dates and latest status where available.  

Our sample of waitlist statistics from 100 private and public institutions paints the following picture:

• The number of students admitted from the waitlist rose 97 percent year over year from 22,223 in 2019 to 43,867 in 2020

• On average, 29 percent of students accepting a place on a waitlist were admitted in 2020, up from 18 percent in 2019

• 33 percent of the schools admitted 10 percent or less of the students accepting a place on the waitlist last year (vs. 48 percent in 2019)

• 17 percent of the schools admitted 5 percent or less (vs. 29 percent in 2019)

• 3 percent admitted no one (vs. 8 percent in 2019)

These results come as no surprise given the uncertainty brought on by the pandemic last cycle. That said, we strongly caution against assuming a similar level of waitlist activity this cycle as much of this uncertainty is now behind us and most schools are resuming normal operations.

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

Click Continue Reading for the list.

Want to gain valuable career skills and work experience during college? If so, you may want to consider a cooperative education program, or co-op.

Co-ops are fantastic opportunities for students to apply their classroom knowledge to hands-on job experiences. Through co-ops, students balance classroom learning with practical work experience related to careers of their interest. Co-ops allow students to earn money, build their resume, learn useful skills, and boost their employability.

To help you explore your options, we have curated a list of strong co-op programs at schools across the nation. Covering a wide variety of institutions, the following list features the admission profiles, program types, academic areas, and more related to these schools' co-op programs.

Click on Continue Reading to see our list of great undergraduate co-op programs nationwide.

Interested in studying “the skill of the century” and accessing a global market that is worth over $300 billion? Look no further than artificial intelligence (AI) and check out our latest list of colleges with strong undergraduate AI programs in the United States.

The term “artificial intelligence” was coined as early as 1956 and refers to the broad concept of making it possible for machines to perform human-like tasks, such as solving problems, making decisions, understanding language, and processing sounds and images. However, AI only became increasingly popular recently, and along with this rise in popularity came spikes in investment, which led to rapid growth in the AI industry.

Studying AI prepares students to solve problems across a variety of fields and introduces them to a huge job market that continues to expand today. Drawing from U.S. News, TechTarget, CSRankings, Computer Science Degree Hub, Great Value Colleges and Value Colleges, we've curated a list of some of the top undergraduate programs in artificial intelligence across the nation. This list also covers information about the overall admission rates and profiles, offered AI programs, curriculum, and research opportunities and facilities for each listed institution.

Click on Continue Reading to see our list of top undergraduate AI programs nationwide.

Here's our initial list of reported overall admission rates for the Class of 2025. Results are now available for Amherst College, Barnard, Boston College, Boston University, Bowdoin, Brigham Young, Brown, Bucknell, Chapman, Claremont McKenna, Colby, Colgate, Colorado College, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Davidson, Duke, Elon, Emory, Fordham, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Hamilton, Harvard, Haverford, Johns Hopkins, Lehigh, Macalester, Middlebury, MIT, Northeastern, Northwestern, Notre Dame, NYU, Oxford at Emory, Princeton, Rice, Swarthmore, Tufts, Tulane, University of Florida, University of Georgia, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, University of Virginia, Vanderbilt, Vassar, Villanova, Washington & Lee, Washington University in St. Louis, Wellesley, Wesleyan, Williams 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.

Georgia Tech announced today that it admitted 18 percent of applicants to the Class of 2025.  

A total 45,350 applications were received, up 11 percent year over year.  

Click here for the news post.

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!

Georgia Tech announced that it admitted 2,330 Early Action 1 applicants to the Class of 2025.  Early Action 1 is for Georgia residents only.  

Early Action 1 applications exceed 6,000, resulting in an admission rate of 38 percent.

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.

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.