The International Counselor welcomes The New York Times to the Blogging World of College Admissions:
NEW YORK A new blog dedicated to “demystifying the college admissions process with insights, analysis and expertise” launched today at The New York Times’ Web site.
Jacques Steinberg, a national education reporter for the Times and author of “The Gatekeepers: Inside the [...]

Sooooo as April 1 is around the corner, Selective colleges have started announcing admit rates: Guess what? It got harder at most places, according to the New York Times:
Bill Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard since 1986, said that the 29,112 applications Harvard received this year represented an all-time high, and a [...]

I am with a group of students on a Habitat for Humanity Building trip in Zambia. No electricty let alone internet. How will I survive?
Our team is also helping raise money for a school for Aids orphans in Malawi. Feel free to contribute or spread the word:

Courtesy of College Confidential:
Amherst (~1.2%)
Baylor +18%
Boston C expected even
Boston U slightly down
Bowdoin (1.7%)
Bucknell (~5%)
Brandeis (10.8%)
Brown ~+21% (still approx)
Carleton (4%)
Carnegie Mellon +12.1% (although apps count methodology in question)
Chicago ~+7%
Clemson +7.1%
Colby (7%)
Colgate down
Colorado State +10%
Columbia 12%
Conn Col up slightly
Cooper Union ~+8%
Cornell +3%
Dartmouth +8.9%
Davidson +1.3%
Duke +17%
Elon down slightly
Fordham +5%
George Wash (2.3%)
Gettysburg ~(15%) (maybe just RD)
Guilford ~+5%
Hamilton (8.5%)
Harvard ~+5.6%
Ithaca [...]

March madness will soon give way to April anxiety and Jay Mathews offers sage advice:
1. How to handle happy, or grieving, friends: The college admissions system, at least for our most selective schools, has become as rational as who wins bingo night at church. Nobody, including the college admissions officers, has a clear idea why [...]

Critics caution slow move forward, but Korean Universities want to be unshackeled:
Since the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology announced admission of 150 freshmen solely through interviews and without written tests, many domestic universities are vying to present their own student selection criteria by their admissions officers. Korea University will admit 23.5 percent of [...]

Here is a wonderful chart of IB recogintion policies in Canada. Did you know over two dozen Canadian universities have scholarships for IB diploma students?ib-recognition-canada

If you walk into any admission office anywhere in the world, they can tell you all the cool places their applicants come from. Some even have maps on the wall with little pushpins representing a student. Davidson college has digitized it, replacing pins with little humans. And each human comes with quote:
These pushpins are placed [...]

Certainly looks that way:

But this fascinating website contends it is all grade inflation:

Be sure to scroll down to the bottom to pick your favourite school and find out their historical trends in grades:
University of Virginia
Average Fall grade

1991

3.090

1992

3.109

1993

3.135

1994

3.123

1995

3.138

1996

3.138

1997

3.154

1998

3.162

1999

3.157

2000

3.155

2001

3.174

2002

3.177

2003

3.178

2004

3.215

2005

3.200

2006

3.213

Source: http://www.web.virginia.edu/IAAS/data_catalog/institutional/historical/gpa/fall_termgpa_by_gender.htm
Not dramtic enough for you? How about Harvard?
1914,1915, 1963 and 1967 estimated from freshman grades.
1966 and [...]

March was usually the time for students to be sweating out teh decisions of colleges. These economic times remind us of one of the nobel truths of college admissions: Just as colleges are trying to decide on which students to admit, students will be deciding which college to go with. This makes colleges nervous, very [...]