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.

Here's our updated list of regular decision 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, along with the notification dates from last year.  Bookmark this site, as we'll post updates often.

Good luck, seniors!

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. 

As we entered 2020, roughly one-third of the schools in our coverage universe offered some form of test-optional admissions. That figure cleared 70 percent in June and is now hovering at 90 percent with the holdouts largely in the South, particularly the public universities in Flordia and Georgia.

To help you keep up with the changes, we're actively tracking test-optional policies for several popular institutions we cover. As always, the definition of "test-optional" varies by institution and often has strings attached so pay close attention to the details.

Click on Continue Reading to see our list of test-optional schools and the type of test-optional policy they employ.  For your convenience, we've included admit rates, test score ranges and links to each school's standardized test policy to help you find suitable candidates for your college list.

College Kickstart subscribers, this is automatically updated and visible as part of the requirements view.

Hoping to make a difference in the way our country is governed?

Then check out our latest list of colleges with strong undergraduate programs in Political Science. Using information compiled from several ranking sites, including U.S. News and Niche, we've summarized admission rates and profiles, program highlights and links to each institution's home page for more information.

Click on Continue Reading to see our list of top undergraduate Political Science programs now.

Hot off the press!  We've had a chance to review the Fall 2020 admissions data released recently by the University of California and thought it would be helpful to summarize it and share our key findings.  

Overall freshman admission rates are up for residents, out of state and international students across the board thanks to a 10 percent year-over-year rise in total admits. If you're an out of state or international student, pay close attention...there continues to be a window of opportunity to take advantage of favorable odds at several UC campuses.

Click on Continue Reading for the details.

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.

Here's our initial list of reported overall admission rates for the Class of 2024. Results are now available for American University, Amherst College, Barnard College, Boston College, Boston University, Bowdoin, Brown, Caltech, Carleton, Colby, Colorado College, Columbia, Dartmouth, Davidson, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, George Washington University, Georgia Tech, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Macalester, Middlebury, MIT, NYU, Northeastern, Northwestern, Notre Dame, NYU, Oxford College at Emory, Princeton, Rice, Swarthmore, Tufts, Tulane, University of Chicago, University of Florida, University of Georgia, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, University of Virginia, Vanderbilt, Villanova, Washington University in St. Louis, Wellesley Wesleyan 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 our updated list of regular decision notification dates for the Class of 2024.  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, along with the notification dates from last year.  Bookmark this site, as we'll post updates often.

Good luck, seniors!

In Part II of this series developed an early admission strategy based on your competitiveness as an applicant, your college list, and your strength of commitment to the top schools on your list.  If you're a competitive applicant with strong qualifications, we recommend that you:

• Take full advantage of Early Action for all the schools on your list

• Apply Restrictive Early Action to your top school or when the restrictions don't inhibit your ability to take advantage of early admission programs at higher ranked schools 

• Apply Early Decision I when you are strongly committed to attending your top choice school and have no concerns about affordability

• Apply Early Decision II if you have been denied admission to your top choice school, you're strongly committed to attending this ED II school as your next best option, and have no concerns about affordability

With this early admission strategy in place, let's put it to work in Part III against a couple of hypothetical applicants.   

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. 

Money Magazine just released its college rankings for 2019-20. Over 2,000 schools were evaluated based on 26 factors along three categories: educational quality, affordability and outcomes. The result: 744 schools that deliver a great education at an affordable price, with good outcomes post graduation.

The top of the list:

• University of California - Irvine 
• Baruch College (CUNY)
• Princeton University
• University of California - Los Angeles 
• University of California - Davis
• Stanford University
• MIT 
• University of Michigan 
• University of California - San Diego 
• University of Virginia 

Click here for the rankings or here for the methodology.

Hot off the press!  We've had a chance to review the Fall 2019 admissions data released recently by the University of California and thought it would be helpful to summarize it and share our key findings.  

Overall freshman admission rates are up for residents and steady for out of state and international students as the University of California continues to settle on a new normal that accommodates a larger mix of non-residents.   If you're an out of state or international student, pay close attention...there continues to be a window of opportunity to take advantage of favorable odds at several UC campuses.

Click on Continue Reading for the details.

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.