The University of California announced today that it is accepting extensions for Fall 2018 applicants affected by natural disasters.  

For those requesting the extension, the deadline will be extended from November 30, 2017 to December 15, 2017.  You will need to email your request to ucinfo@applyucsupport.net with the header "Extension Request – Weather/Fire Event" and provide context in the "Additional Comments" area of the Personal Insight section.

Click here for the details.

If you're in the hunt for merit scholarships, be sure to stay on top of explicit deadlines a school on your list might have.

In some cases, like Boston University and the University of Richmond, it's a hard deadline that you have to meet in order for you to be considered at all.  In others, like Indiana University and many other public institutions, it's a "priority" deadline that maximizes your chances of merit aid before the money runs out.  Either way, merit aid continues to be an excellent way for good students to defray the cost of an education.  

We've compiled a list of selected schools in our coverage universe with explicit deadlines, along with some stats to help you gauge the size and breadth of the institution's merit offerings.  We've also included links to each school's scholarship page for easy access to the details.

Most of these schools automatically consider you for merit scholarships without the need for an additional application.  

Click on Continue Reading below for the list.

With the fall application cycle now in full swing, it's important to keep an eye on interview requirements for the schools on your list—especially if they're looking for evidence of demonstrated interest.  

To make this easier for you, we've compiled a list of popular schools where interviews are required or strongly recommended, along with the degree to which the institution considers demonstrated interest as part of the evaluation.  

In cases like Hillsdale College where interviews are highly recommended and demonstrated interest is very important, it's a good bet than an interview is worth your time.  On the flip side, if interviews are optional and demonstrated interest isn't considered, booking an interview is less critical.  The devil is in the details, so to help you figure out your strategy we've also included a link to each listed school's interview policy.  Do keep in mind that interview requirements may often vary by major.

Click on Continue Reading for the list.

In search of schools with no extra Common App essays?  Look no further, check out our list of popular schools here, updated for the 2017-18 application season.  

The list includes schools that simply require the base essay as well as others offering "optional" essays which you might want to complete anyway to strengthen your application.  If you're a student or parent with a College Kickstart Plus or Premium subscription, this information is already available to you as part of our application requirements tracking feature.

Click on Continue Reading for the list.

Attending a school with great cross-registration options can be a terrific way for you to take classes beyond those offered at your home institution, expand your horizons and experience academic life in a completely different setting.

The Claremont Colleges, for example, allow students to take classes at any member institution (Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, Pomona, Scripps). Students at Occidental can also take engineering classes at Caltech, while Wellesley students can take business classes at Babson or engineering courses at MIT. From coast to coast, our list includes several popular colleges from our coverage universe, the consortium/consortia they belong to and the available cross-registration options. Be sure to click on the included links for detail on cross-registration policies—for example, some schools will only allow you to cross-register for courses that not offered at your home institution, while others may only allow to cross-register on a space-available basis.

Click on Continue Reading below for the details.

Money Magazine just released its college rankings for 2017-18. Over 2,000 schools were evaluated based on 27 factors along three categories: educational quality, affordability and outcomes. The result: 711 schools that deliver a great education at an affordable price, with good outcomes post graduation.

The top of the list:

• Princeton University
• Baruch College (CUNY)
• University of Michigan 
• University of California - Berkeley 
• University of California - Los Angeles
• Stanford University 
• University of California - Irvine 
• MIT
• University of California - Davis 
• Harvard University 

Click here for the rankings or here for the methodology.

Hot off the press!  We've had a chance to review the Fall 2017 admissions data released yesterday 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 non-residents and down for residents as the University of California continues to settle on a new normal that accommodates a larger mix of out of state and international students.   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.

The University of California approved a policy on non-resident enrollment.  

Non-resident enrollment will be capped at 18 percent at UC Davis, UC Merced, UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, and at 2017-18 levels at UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, UCLA, and UC San Diego.

Click here for the details.

Here's another good read from Will Dix at Forbes—this post focuses on the need to pay attention to admission history as part of your college plan and features some of the analysis from our recent notable admission rate changes post.  We think this article reinforces the importance of staying current with admission results, as each year there are surprises like American University—where the admission rate has fallen from 45 percent to 26 percent in the span of just three admission cycles—which can materially change how schools on your list might get categorized.

Click here for the Forbes article.

In search of schools with generous merit scholarship programs?

Look no further.  

Here we've compiled a list of competitive 4-year institutions that offer merit aid to 20% or more of undergraduates.  Merit awards are typically not based on financial need but rather on academic performance and other qualities deemed desirable by the institution.  As such, they can make college more affordable for academically gifted students—especially those that are unlikely to qualify for need-based financial aid. 

Most of these schools automatically consider you for merit scholarships when you submit your application.  

In search of colleges and universities with strong engineering programs?

Look no further, we've identified 60+ schools that fit the bill.  To make the grade, we looked for public and private institutions that granted engineering degrees to 10% or more of its graduates last year and were consistently ranked highly by a variety of third party sources.

There are plenty of household names like MIT, Caltech and Stanford on the list, in addition to several lesser known gems.  If you're 100% certain about engineering, you might consider schools like Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering or Webb Institute, or if you're looking for engineering in a liberal arts setting, consider checking out Harvey Mudd, Swarthmore, Bucknell, Lafayette, Lehigh, Trinity or Union Colleges.  

To help you categorize schools into safeties, targets and reaches, we've included admission rates, mid-50th percentile SAT and ACT scores.  We've also provided links to each school's website to help you explore fit.

Click on Continue Reading for the details. 

The Common App for 2016-17 is now live, and we've just wrapped up our analysis of the real number of short answer/essay prompts required for each school.  If you've been through this process before, you know that just because a school lacks a writing supplement doesn't mean there are no additional essays to complete.  Many schools in fact simply embed these prompts in the main application itself.

This post summarizes the prompts required for 200+ Common Application schools in our coverage universe.  Our definition of a prompt is a question that requires more than a one word or one sentence answer.  It's not perfect, but it should help you gauge the amount of writing you'll need to get through over the next few months.  It'll also help you identify schools that you can apply to without the need for extra essays!

Click on Continue Reading for the list.

Money Magazine just released its college rankings for 2016-17. Nearly 2,000 schools were evaluated based on 24 factors along three dimensions: educational quality, affordability and outcomes. The result: 736 schools that deliver a great education at an affordable price, with good outcomes post graduation.

The top of the list:

• Princeton University
• University of Michigan
• Harvard University
• Rice University
• University of California - Berkeley
• Brigham Young University
• Amherst College
• Cooper Union
• University of Virginia
• Stanford University

Click here for the rankings or here for the methodology.

Hot off the press!  We've had a chance to review the Fall 2016 admissions data released yesterday by the University of California and thought it would be helpful to summarize it and our key findings.  

Long story short, overall freshman admission rates are up as the University of California makes good on its plan to enroll an additional 10,000 California undergraduates over the next three years.  And while the emphasis was on admitting more California residents for the Fall 2016 class, we suspect a "new normal" has appeared that creates more room for non-residents as well.  If you're an out of state or international student, pay close attention...there appears to be a window of opportunity to take advantage of favorable odds at several UC campuses.

Click on Continue Reading for the details.