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.

Need-blind schools do not take financial aid into consideration when making admissions decisions.  Knowing these schools can be invaluable for making sure you or your teen's application is getting maximum consideration with regard to financial aid.

Here we've compiled a list of private schools that practice need blind admission for full-time, first year, U.S. citizens and permanent residents.  Please note that not all of these schools offer financial aid to meet 100% of demonstrated need. Note also that the list isn't exhaustive—it's meant to cover the more competitive 4 year institutions in the nation.

This list is integrated into the latest update to College Kickstart. 

Need-Blind Schools

A few days ago we reported that over 90% of college lists initially submitted to College Kickstart needed improvement, and just about all of them (>90%) were too aggressive. Here are the top 5 reasons why and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you.

U.S. News & World Report released their 2015 college rankings earlier today.  Nearly 1,800 schools were covered nationwide and evaluated on multiple measures of academic excellence and outcomes to produce the final rankings.

Princeton retains sole posession of the top spot for National Universities, and Williams College tops the list of Liberal Arts Colleges.  

Click here for more. 

By now, most of you are quite familiar with the Common Application ("Common App").  And most of you that are applying to competitive institutions are painfully aware that there are often extra essay or short answer prompts to complete.

The good news is that this isn't always the case.  Recently we introduced a new feature in College Kickstart that identifies Common App schools that don't require additional essay or short answer prompts.

Put another way, these are schools that you can apply to easily once you've completed the core common app.  It's another useful way to narrow down your list choices, or to consider new ones that may be a good fit and don't require extra effort to submit.

Enjoy!

Note: the list isn't exhaustive—it's meant to cover the more competitive 4 year institutions in the nation.

The List

A new update to College Kickstart is now available.  This release introduces a new MixFixer™ capability that allows you to easily strengthen your list within a single screen.

MixFixer also includes some nifty filters to help you quickly identify schools that:

• Offer non-binding early action
• Practice need-blind admission
• Offer and automatically consider you for merit scholarships
• Do not require additional Common App essays to be submitted 

Money Magazine just released their inaugural list of "best colleges."

To come up with the list, they screened ~1,500 colleges based on educational quality, affordability and alumni earnings using data from the 2012-13 academic year.  At the top of the list is Babson College, followed by Webb Institute, MIT, Princeton and Stanford.

Click here for the article.

Applications are now available for University of California admissions. 

Click here to get the scoop.

Forbes released their 2014 version of America's Top Colleges last night.  650 schools are ranked, using a methodology that considers student satisfaction, post-graduate sucess, student debt, graduation rate and academic success. 

At the top of the list: Williams College, followed by Stanford, Swarthmore, Princeton and MIT.

Click here to check out the rankings.