College Admissions

January 18, 2021

Prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, 1,169,464 international students were studying at colleges and universities across the United States. While this number was already slightly down from...

December 14, 2020

Even the brightest and most worldly college-bound American teens are not usually able to name more than a handful of universities in the United Kingdom. Sure, there’s Oxford, Cambridge,...

September 4, 2020

The notion of test-optional admissions was born in 1969, in the coastal town of Brunswick, Maine. There, the newly-minted, fresh-faced Dean of Bowdoin College, Roger Howell Jr., all of...

August 3, 2020

As the higher education community waited with bated breath for the annual Common App launch party on August 1st, rumors flew about what revolutionary changes to the popular application...

June 10, 2020

We previously covered the Early Decision/Early Action acceptance rates for the Class of 2024 at the eight Ivy League universities as well at a number of other selective schools....

April 20, 2020

In an ordinary year, roughly 2% of college-bound high school grads elect to take a gap year prior to launching their postsecondary career. Many spend the time traveling internationally,...

April 17, 2020

As the entire world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, international high school seniors already accepted into an American college must wait to see what unfolds with respect to travel...

April 1, 2020

Recognizing that the coronavirus crisis has caused massive disruptions to the lives of current high school students (along with the rest of the world), many colleges have already come...

March 26, 2020

In the eyes of college admissions officers, there are certain types of activities that occupy the highest points within the extracurricular firmament. Placing in national/international academic competitions, ascending to...

March 23, 2020

For academically-inclined 10th grade students, the abrupt shuttering of their high school due to the coronavirus pandemic was not met with the type of youthful glee that follows a...

March 19, 2020

“What should I do now that college tours are canceled?” “How will I demonstrate interest in my prospective colleges?” “Will I be able to take the SAT, ACT, and...

March 18, 2020

Depending on where you live, your high school may officially be closed for the next couple of weeks or (perhaps more likely) months. This is surely a tough thing...

March 10, 2020

As of the publication of this blog, there are far more unknowns than knowns regarding coronavirus and COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. What is known is that,...

January 30, 2020

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. This well-worn idiom captures the mindset of the decision-makers at the Common Application who announced this January that the essay prompts for...

January 21, 2020

Welcome to College Transitions’ first look at early round acceptance rates at Ivy League and other highly-selective colleges and universities for the 2019-20 cycle. As of this posting in...

March 18, 2019

In the wake of the instantly infamous Varsity Blues scandal, our admissions consulting firm, College Transitions, has received a flood of interview requests from media outlets along with countless queries...

January 15, 2019

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. This well-worn idiom captures the mindset of the decision-makers at the Common Application who announced this January that the essay prompts for...

January 1, 2019

For even the most academically gifted teen, the prospect of getting into an Ivy League or Ivy-caliber college is a tenuous proposition. In 2018, acceptance rates at the eight...

May 17, 2018

The results from the 2017-18 admissions cycle are still rolling in, but the data available thus far sends one very clear message—acceptance rates at highly-selective colleges are dwindling. Ivy...

March 26, 2018

“Holistic admissions, applications rise, demonstrated interest, SAT goodbyes…” There are enough hot-button issues taking center stage in the admissions world in 2018 to add a verse to Billy Joel’s...