Simply put, early admission should always be considered as part of your college plan.

Why?  Because early action and early decision programs can be tremendously useful in helping a competitive candidate enhance admission odds.  By submitting your application early, you'll hear back earlier and in most instances improve your chances for admission.  Better yet, if you're accepted early, you'll be able to avoid the cost and effort of applying to schools of lower interest on your list.

In this three part series, we'll explore the fundamentals, when/how to take advantage of them, and where early admission is offered.  Read on for Part I.

With the fall 2019-20 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 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.

U.S. News & World Report released their 2020 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.

Approximately 13 percent of institutions were reclassified to changes in the underlying Carnegie classification system in 2018.

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. 

Here's our latest list of reported overall admission rates for the Class of 2023. Results are now available for American University, Amherst, Barnard, Boston College, Boston University, Bowdoin, Brown, Carleton, Colby, Colgate, Colorado College, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Fordham, Franklin and Marshall, George Washington University, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Hamilton, Harvard, Harvey Mudd, Haverford, Johns Hopkins, Lehigh, Macalester, MIT, Middlebury, Mount Holyoke, Northeastern, Northwestern, Notre Dame, NYU, Oxford at Emory, Pitzer, Princeton, Rice, Santa Clara, Scripps, Swarthmore, Tufts, Tulane, University of Chicago, University of Florida, University of Georgia, University of Pennsylvania, University of Richmond, University of Southern California, University of Virginia, Vanderbilt, Vassar, Wake Forest,  Washington and Lee, Washington University in St. Louis, Wellesley, Wesleyan, William & Mary, 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.

For those of you that have been waitlisted at one of your top choices, here's a list of 2018 waitlist statistics for several popular private and public schools, along with notification dates and latest status where available.  

Our sample of waitlist statistics from 138 private and public institutions paints the following picture:

• On average, 11 percent of students accepting a place on a waitlist were admitted

• 71 percent of the schools admitted 10 percent or less of the students accepting a place on the wait list last year

• 57 percent of the schools admitted 5 percent or less

• 24 percent admitted no one

There are several factors driving the low rates, including the size of the waitlist (often very large), and how well a school anticipates its admissions yield. 

Click Continue Reading for the list.

Here's our updated list of reported early decision and early action admission rates for the Class of 2023.

This list includes results from Boston College, Boston University, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Middlebury, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Princeton, Rice, University of Georgia, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, Vanderbilt, Villanova, Washington University in St. Louis and Yale, along with partial data from Barnard, Bowdoin, Columbia, Grinnell, NYU, Trinity College, Tufts and the University of Miami.  While Stanford has released decisions, results will not be released.

Bookmark this page, as we'll be updating it frequently over the next several weeks.

Click Continue Reading for the list.

Georgetown University admitted 919 restrictive early action applicants to the Class of 2023.  

A total of 7,802 early action applications were received this year, resulting in an early admission rate of 12 percent. 

Click here for the news release.

Here's our latest list of reported early decision and early action admisison rates for the Class of 2022.

This list includes results from Boston College, Bowdoin, Brown, Claremont McKenna, Colgate, Colorado College, Cornell, Dartmouth, Davidson, Duke, Emory, Emory at Oxford, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Hamilton, Harvard, Harvey Mudd, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Middlebury, Mt. Holyoke, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Pitzer, Princeton, Rice, Scripps, Tulane (ED), the University of Georgia, UNC Chapel Hill, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, Washington University in St. Louis, Wellesley, Wesleyan and Yale, along with partial data from Barnard, Boston University, Columbia, NYU, Smith, Trinity College, Tufts and Williams.  While Stanford has released decisions, it will likely not release results until the end of the admissions cycle.

Bookmark this page, as we'll be updating it frequently over the next several weeks.

Click Continue Reading for the list.

With the fall 2018-19 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 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.

Click on Continue Reading for the list.

U.S. News & World Report released their 2019 college rankings earlier today.  Over 1,800 schools were covered nationwide and evaluated on multiple measures of academic excellence and outcomes to produce the final rankings.

Social mobility indicators were added this year, while the acceptance rate was eliminated as a factor and others like expert opinions and test scores were reduced in weighting.

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. 

Here's our latest list of reported overall admission rates for the Class of 2022. Results are now available for American University, Amherst, Barnard, Boston College, Boston University, Bowdoin, Brown, Carleton, Chapman, Claremont McKenna, Colby, Colgate, Colorado College, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Davidson, Denison, Duke, Emory, Emory (Oxford), George Washington, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Hamilton, Harvard, Harvey Mudd, Haverford, Johns Hopkins, Lafayette, Lehigh, Macalester, Middlebury, MIT, Northeastern, Northwestern, Notre Dame, NYU, Olin, Pepperdine, Pitzer, Pomona, Princeton, Santa Clara, Scripps, Stanford, Swarthmore, Trinity, Tufts, Tulane, Union, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC Merced, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, University of Chicago, University of Florida, University of Georgia, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, University of Richmond, University of Rochester, USC, University of Virginia, Vanderbilt, Vassar, Villanova, Virginia Tech, Washington University in St. Louis, Wellesley, Wesleyan, William & Mary, 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.

Here's an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal on the impact of being a legacy applicant on college admissions.  While the article focuses on how legacy admissions impacts efforts to expand access and diversity, it also sheds light on the legacy advantage at institutions such as Notre Dame, the University of Virginia, Georgetown, Princeton and Harvard, where the legacy admission rate can be as much as 2-5 times higher than the general rate.

Click here for the article

For those of you that have been waitlisted at one of your top choices, here's a list of 2017 waitlist statistics for several popular private and public schools, along with notification dates and latest status where available.  

Our sample of waitlist statistics from 132 private and public institutions paints the following picture:

• On average, 13 percent of students accepting a place on a waitlist were admitted

• 63 percent of the schools admitted 10 percent or less of the students accepting a place on the wait list last year

• 51 percent of the schools admitted 5 percent or less

• 16 percent admitted no one

There are several factors driving the low rates, including the size of the waitlist (often very large), and how well a school anticipates its admissions yield. 

Click Continue Reading for the list.

In search of colleges and universities with strong undergraduate international relations programs?

Courtesy of Foreign Policy magazine and the College of William & Mary, we've compiled their list of top 50 programs in the United States, along with admit rate and test score data to help you locate likely, target and reach schools to add to your list.  As always, we've also included a link to each school's website to help you explore further.

Click on Continue Reading for the list, or here for the Foreign Policy article. 

Georgetown University admitted 1,002 restrictive early action applicants to the Class of 2022.  

A total of 8,383 early action applications were received this year, up 7 percent, resulting in an early admission rate of 12 percent. 

Click here for the news release.