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.

College Kickstart for High School Counselors features several new and exciting capabilities for 2021 to help you better navigate the uncertainty brought on by COVID and guide the planning process whether you're in-person or working remotely over a Zoom session.

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 2021, including a host of features to navigate the uncertainty brought on by COVID-19, new tags, majors in MixFixer™, printable dashboard views and a new list progress report.

With 2021 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 Georgia offered 8,086 early action applicants to the Class of 2025.

A total of 20,901 applications were received, up 27 percent from the previous year, resulting in an admit rate of 39 percent.  

Click here for the article.

Attention College Kickstart subscribers! We’ve enhanced our test-optional recommendation engine to help you better handle the growing list of schools going test-blind for the 2020-21 admission cycle.

Click Continue Reading below to learn more.

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.

Seniors—in search of a better way to navigate college admissions madness?

Take charge with College Kickstart!

Given a list of schools you have in mind and your academic credentials, we'll help you craft a personalized plan in no time flat. That includes:

• Ensuring your list is balanced and set up for success
• Capitalizing on odds-boosting early decision/early action opportunities
• Creating an action plan to minimize wasted effort
• Finding schools with great need and merit-based aid
• Tracking key application requirements

Better yet, we've enhanced our capabilities to help you better navigate the uncertainty brought on by COVID-19. That includes active tracking of test-optional schools, recommending situations where test-optional makes sense for you and where in-person or virtual interviews are still required or recommended. And if you haven't been able to take an SAT or ACT, you'll also be able to run College Kickstart with just your GPA or class rank.

With early admission deadlines looming, now's the time to let College Kickstart make a difference for you. It's easy to use, a great reality check and available for less than the cost of an application.

With the fall 2020-21 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 — in-person or virtual — 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 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.

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. 

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.

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

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.