We're pleased to announce the availability of College Kickstart 2015 release 1.1.  In addition to updated admissions data for 75+ schools, this release features a new and improved MixFixer™ to help you "bulletproof" your college list with ease.

What's a MixFixer?

MixFixer is the fastest and easiest way to set your college list up for success.  It kicks in once College Kickstart has graded your list and recommended ways to strengthen it.  MixFixer does three things:

• It categorizes. MixFixer automatically categorizes every school in our database into safeties, targets and reaches based on school admission rates and your academic profile.  

• It filters. MixFilter provides filters to help you quickly narrow down your choices.

• It corrects. MixFilter helps you take corrective action by adding schools of interest to your list and re-running the analysis.  Improve that D- to an A in no time!

What's new?

This release includes several new filters that you've asked for, in addition to a new special filter that will help you locate "good value" schools:

• Filter by school size.  You can now filter schools by the total undergraduate population.  Three options are offered: small (<2,500 undergrads), medium (2,500-10,000) and large (10,000+).

• Filter by setting.  You can also filter by school setting: rural, suburban and urban.

• Filter by geographical region. You can narrow down schools by geography, including the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, South, Midwest, Mountain and Pacific regions.

• Filter by indebtedness.  Is a public school cheaper than a private school?  Not always, after you factor in financial aid.  One useful way to figure out bang for buck is to find schools that leave you with little debt after graduation.  In other words, schools that are either cheap to begin with our schools that are terrific with financial aid and in particular, scholarships/grants.  Our new indebtedness filter looks specifically for schools that on average leave those taking financial aid with less than $20,000 of debt at graduation.  That's all four years.  Check it out, you'll be surprised by the results!  

Getting Started

To access MixFixer, run Kickstart and simply click on the Find Safeties, Find Targets or Find Reaches button in the List Check tab.

College Kickstart 2015 is here!

Two editions are available in this year's lineup:

• Standard Edition ($50/season), which includes support for lists of 6-12 schools from our database of 250+ top U.S. colleges and universities

• Plus Edition ($70/season), which includes support for lists of 6-20 schools and an enhanced database of 400+ entities.  

Both editions continue to offer the same great features to help you put together a sensible college plan, and are available for less than the cost of an application. 

Learn more

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.