“Innovative and invaluable…use this book as your college lifeline.”
— Lynn O'Shaughnessy
Nationally Recognized College Expert
August 4, 2025
Twenty years ago, the University of Wisconsin-Madison was hardly a hot-ticket destination for stellar students from all over the country/world. While always a popular and sound choice for locals,...
Outside of “Encourage your ultra-wealthy parents to donate a building” or “Be a heavily-recruited athlete who also happens to have an SAT score in the 99th percentile,” there is...
NYU has a reputation for world-class academics with an international flair. In fact, the 29,000+ undergraduates situated in Greenwich Village include the highest number of international students of any...
August 1, 2025
Over 15,000 undergraduate students proudly don the distinctive orange gear associated with Syracuse University, a mid-sized school in Upstate New York. The ‘Cuse received a record 42,000+ applications for...
Fordham University differs from many in its peer group of selective, academically strong schools located in the Northeast who have seen their acceptance rates plummet over the last decade....
July 31, 2025
Unlike many other public institutions with notable strengths in the areas of business, computer science, and engineering, Virginia Tech’s acceptance rate does not yet strike fear into the hearts...
Clemson University, a public land-grant institution located in South Carolina, is home to more than 23,000 undergraduate students. After receiving an all-time record of 60,000+ applications in 2024, it...
Emory’s 15% acceptance rate for the Class of 2029 came after they received approximately 37,000 applicants for admission, numbers that have held steady over the past several years. Whether...
Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, has long been a highly selective liberal arts school, but its popularity among top-of-their-class teens has exploded in the last couple of years....
Situated in scenic Addison County, Vermont, Middlebury College is consistently ranked as one of the top 10 liberal arts schools in the United States. While not quite as selective...
July 30, 2025
Of the eight Ivy League schools, Dartmouth receives the fewest number of applications. There were 28,230 hopefuls for the Class of 2029, around half the number at Columbia or...
Pepperdine University is a rare institution that is ranked by U.S. News as a top 100 school while also having an acceptance rate of just under 63% last year....
July 29, 2025
Oh, to be alive in 1998…we watched with childlike naiveté as Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa launched home run after home run assisted by their “totally natural” superhero muscles,...
July 28, 2025
Yale’s acceptance rate of 4.6% for the Class of 2029 is not the type of number you want to simply glide past as you proceed through the application with...
Houston, Texas, is home to one of the nation’s finest private research institutions—Rice University. No matter how you measure Rice’s performance, this school of roughly 4,500 undergraduates comes out...
July 27, 2025
Davidson College is a highly ranked, North Carolina-based liberal arts college. And, yes, NBA legend Steph Curry is an alum. It is one of the very best such institutions...
July 26, 2025
Wesleyan University is a top 20 liberal arts school that has never been afraid to do things their way. Situated in Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan is slightly larger than many...
July 25, 2025
Applicants to the Brown Class of 2029 were greeted with a 5.6% acceptance rate, similar to the year prior. Given that 19 of every 20 applicants are turned away–even...
July 24, 2025
Like many other elite private colleges, Johns Hopkins University has fared quite well in higher education’s selectivity arms race since the start of the present millennium. As the Baltimore...
July 23, 2025
The University of Notre Dame has always been a university for high-achieving students. In 1986, the home of the Fighting Irish admitted 43% of applicants. This group, the Class...
