Posts by Michael Trivette:

Getting on the Radar: Which Elite D3 Colleges Come Looking, and Which Ones You Have to Find

Posted on: 13 Aug 2026

How does a coach at Williams or Swarthmore or Emory find out your child exists? At most of these colleges, nothing happens until the student makes contact. What varies, and varies far more than families expect, is how much money each college has behind its recruiting operation. Federal filings record it annually. At the top […]

University of Maryland: Inside the Numbers

Posted on: 05 Aug 2026

In the fall of 2025, 67,101 students applied to the University of Maryland, College Park. Four years earlier the number was 50,146. A one-third increase in applications over four years would strain any admissions office, and it arrived at a university that was already one of the most sought-after public campuses on the East Coast. […]

Wake Forest University: Inside the Numbers

Posted on: 05 Aug 2026

In September 2025, Wake Forest University welcomed the largest first-year class in its history. The 1,545 students who arrived in Winston-Salem outnumbered every entering class before them, and they did so in a year when the university also reported its highest share of Pell-eligible and first-generation students in a decade. Those two facts frame Wake […]

William & Mary: Inside the Numbers

Posted on: 04 Aug 2026

William & Mary reports an admit rate near 34 percent, a number that places it among solid public universities rather than the most selective ones. For most of the students who apply, that number is close to meaningless. William & Mary runs its admissions the way a selective private does, and two features of the […]

Tulane University: Inside the Numbers

Posted on: 28 Jul 2026

Consider two applicants to Tulane with identical files. One applies early decision in November and commits to attend if admitted. The other applies in the regular round in January and keeps every option open. For the Fall 2025 entering class, the first faced an admit rate of 58.2 percent. The second was competing inside a […]

University of California, San Diego: Inside the Numbers

Posted on: 23 Jul 2026

At nearly every public flagship in the country, the out-of-state applicant faces the longer odds. At UC San Diego, the reverse is true. For the Fall 2025 entering class, Californians were admitted at about 25 percent while applicants from other states were admitted at nearly 40 percent. International applicants, usually the most disadvantaged group at […]

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Inside the Numbers

Posted on: 22 Jul 2026

How hard is it to get into the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill? The answer depends almost entirely on one fact an applicant cannot change: which state they call home. For the Fall 2025 entering class, North Carolina residents were admitted at 37 percent while out-of-state applicants faced a rate closer to 9 […]

Top Undergraduate Geology Programs

Posted on: 15 Jul 2026

Geology, the study of Earth’s composition, structure, processes, and history, is one of the most consequential applied sciences in human civilization. Geologists and earth scientists map the resources that power economies, assess the hazards that threaten populations, monitor the climate systems that govern all life on Earth, and reconstruct the billions of years of planetary […]