All admissions data updates are now complete for the 2017-18 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 2017-18 admission plan changes and application requirements, more departmental coverage and more resident/non-resident admission rates for the public institutions we cover.  Better yet, we've incorporated the latest Class of 2021 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.

What's new in College Kickstart

Over the past two months we've been incorporating several updates to our admissions database to help you be more effective and organized as you finalize you college plans.  Highlights:

• 2017-18 key application requirements. 2017-18 application requirements are now available for all schools in our coverage universe.  This includes standardized testing policies, recommendation and interview requirements and even a count and sizing of short answer/essay prompts for each application.  As always, links are provided directly to school websites for definitive answers.  For more information about how we track key application requirements, check out our recent blog post here.

• 2017-18 early admission plan changes.  Approximately 15-20 schools in our coverage universe have introduced early admission plan changes for this application cycle, including Northeastern (new ED2 option and changes to their existing EA option), the University of Richmond (new EA option) and Villanova (new ED1 option).  For a summary of changes, check out our blog post here.

• New resident/non-resident options.  Resident and non-resident options have been added for UT Austin, Georgia Tech and the University of Wisconsin.  

• New school/department coverage.  New schools added since August include Cal Baptist, Illinois State, Samford University and the University of Nevada - Las Vegas.  Departmental coverage is now provided for Florida Atlantic University, Santa Clara University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  New departmental entries have also been added for the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University, and at Clemson University (reorganized departments).

• Class of 2021 admission rates.  Class of 2021 admission rates have been incorporated for several popular public and private institutions we cover, including schools with notable admission rate changes that can impact how a school is categorized. This includes schools like Emory, Georgia Tech, Grinnell, Tulane, Vassar and Wellesley.  For a list of schools with notable admission rate changes, please check out our blog post here.

To see how the latest admissions data affects your plan, simply log into College Kickstart and rerun your plan.