Where to apply really comes down to who are you and who do you want to be? The dirty secret  is of course it is more a buyer’s market than people realise. Sure it is really competative at a hadnful of colleges, but many want applications from students just like you–not only do they want [...]

Yeah for Hamilton! I am super impressed that they have quite literally put their money where their mouths are.They join the ranks of need blind.
Six trustees have pledged $500,000 each to the college to help fund the first few years of the initiative. Hamilton College also will begin a fundraiser to raise $40 million [...]

WIth many college deadlines past, we get a glimpse of just how competative it is out there:
11% (vs. this time last year — deadline is 3/1) Temple
“down” Maryland-College park
-0.7% Yale
Whitman (no change)
+1% Bowdoin
+1% U Conn
+2% U of California System (overall)
…..+5.5% UCLA (72,000 –> 76,000 apps!)
+2.3% NYU
+3% George Washington
+3% Illinois Urbana-Champaign
+3% Lafayette
+3% Union
+3% Vassar
+3% Williams
+3% [...]

Simply fascinating…and depressing. Cheating has long been a major plague of education. In a rare glimpse inside Korean students seeking admissions to US colleges, The Korea Times has launched an investigative series. The first examines Ghost writers–students hiring professionals to not only write their college admission essays, but also art portfolios.
A high school graduate in [...]

The BBC reports that: “As of January 22, the number of UK-based applicants, 499,451, was up 22.1%, while overseas applications rose 28.7% to 71,105. And more would-be students may yet apply.” This is just the latest of several years of increases.

The BBC further reports that the Russell Group–a consortium of the most competitive universities–experienced increases [...]

This time at Vanderbilt:
On Feb. 5, an email that was supposed to be a courtesy to international applicants waiting for their letters of acceptance from Vanderbilt was sent accidentally to 56 other students who had not made the cut.

Someone was a little too quick on the draw over at George Washington U and sent acceptance emails to students who were not accepted…
“A very small number of Early Decision 2 applicants received the email in error,” Napper said in an e-mail Wednesday. “We realized the computer glitch soon after it was sent and have [...]

Joshua Kim explains what he will be–and not–looking for when his kids start the college search in 2019 (Always good to get a head start).
Colleges and universities that invest in creating personalized learning opportunities will gain significant advantages in the competitive market for students.
Some attributes that we will look for in selecting a college:
- A [...]

Times–they are a changin’–or so it goes in financial aid for international students. Up until recently, things had looked more positive with 8 colleges offering need-blind for international students:

MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Massachusetts
Harvard University in Massachusetts
Princeton University in New Jersey
Yale University in Connecticut
Williams College in Massachusetts
Middlebury College in Vermont
Dartmouth College in New Hampshire
Amherst [...]

American +12%
Bowdoin +1%
Brown +20%
U of California System +2%
Cal State System +50%
Chicago +42%
U Conn +1%
Connecticut College +10%
Cornell +5%
Dartmouth +4%
Delaware +7%
DePauw +18%
Drexel +19%
Duke +11%
George Washington +3%
Georgia Tech +13%
Harvard +5%
Hawaii-Manoa +25%
Illinois Urbana-Champaign +3%
Hopkins +13%
Loyola (MD) +30%
UMBC +5%
Maryland-College park “down”
Middlebury +15%
UMN Twin Cities +10%
MIT +5%
Northwestern +9%
Penn State +4%
Penn +17%
Princeton +19%
Richmond +9%
Rice +9%
Rutgers +5%
Stanford +5%
Swarthmore +8%
Temple -11% (vs. this time [...]