Today the UC Office of the President issued a press release announcing that applications are up another 6.5% from last year.  Preliminary figures indicate the total number of high school seniors applying to at least one University of California campus is now over 158,000.  

An update will be issued in January.

Here's an excellent posting from Johns Hopkins University on essays that worked.  Unlike the previous posts that focus on tips, this article provides seven actual essay examples submitted by applicants and commentary from the admissions committee on why they worked.

Here's a student's perspective on the college admissions process, courtesy of Katherine Varga for hercampus.com.  Bottom line: don't panic, you're going to be fine.

Here's a video segment from the Today Show featuring Jacques Steinberg, former New York Times senior editor and author of The Gatekeepers.  It's about the art of writing college essays and he provides some examples of what works and doesn't and why.  Though the segment is from 2010, it should be of help to those of you trying to figure out how to best convey your thoughts on paper. 

Here's another useful set of tips for writing an effective application essay, this time from Jeff Brenzel, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Yale University, courtesy of the College Board.

We've designed College Kickstart for simplicity, but there's plenty more under the covers for those looking for more.  In this blog post, we'll take you through five "hidden" features that can improve both your productivity and understanding of how College Kickstart does its thing:

1. Bulk loading schools to your list
2. Improving your list grade with MixFixer
3. Finding additional school ideas with MixFixer
4. Using popups for greater clarity
5. Putting commitment checkboxes to work

You've used Naviance to come up with a list of colleges you're thinking about.  Excellent!   

Now what? 

In this age of single digit admission rates and $75 application fees, it's no longer as simple as "just apply to them all."  

College Kickstart helps you make the leap from "colleges I'm thinking about" to "colleges I'm applying to." Read on to find out how we turn the data you've collected into a sensible and actionable plan.

For those of you interested in getting some insight on how colleges make admission decisions, here's an interesting article from Nick Anderson at The Washington Post.  It's from March of this year, but it provides a glimpse of the admission process from the inside at George Washington University.  

Between your school search, bolstering test scores and GPA, and figuring out how to get in, it's all too easy to get caught up in the craziness of college admissions.  Here's a great blog post from Kim Hunter, the former Associate Director of Admissions at MIT, about the importance of maintaining perspective. 

Click here for the post.

Interested in a student perspective about College Kickstart?

Here's an article by Hanna Weiler from Berkeley High School.  Hanna is a senior and writer for the school paper, the Berkeley High Jacket.  

Having a tough time getting rolling on your college admission essays?  

Here are nine tips on putting together essays that "wow" from USA Today.

Click here for the article.

Citing better ways to evaluate academic quality and expand diversity, a new wave of colleges and universities are moving to test-optional admissions.  Institutions making the move recently include Wesleyan University, Temple University and Bryn Mawr.

Click here for the article.

Here's an insightful article from NBC News about the value of an elite education and the plight of today's middle class in affording it. With most top institutions now offering only need-based financial aid, the article asserts that middle class families are being squeezed out due to affordability and the prospect of graduating with enormous debt.

Click here for the article.

Good news—we've just expanded the College Kickstart database by another 30 schools, bringing the total to 225 competitive 4-year colleges and universities.

The following schools have been added to the list: 

New Additions

Attention foodies: today Cappex introduced the 2015 Cappies™ for Best College Food.  At the top of the list: Bowdoin College, followed by Virginia Tech and Hendrix College.  

Click here for the complete list.