“Innovative and invaluable…use this book as your college lifeline.”
— Lynn O'Shaughnessy
Nationally Recognized College Expert
August 13, 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,...
Of the eight Ivy League schools, Dartmouth receives the fewest number of applications. There were 28,863 hopefuls for the Class of 2030, roughly half the number at Columbia. Applications...
Of the 61,031 applications received by Columbia, just 4.2% were accepted, the lowest mark in the Ivy League this cycle. At a school where 96 of every 100 applicants...
With an acceptance rate under 4% (yes, truly), Caltech is one of the most highly selective schools in the country. The most recent complete figure is 3.78% for the...
Boston College’s 12.7% acceptance rate for the Class of 2030 is less than half of what it was just five years ago, and it came out of a record...
Back in the ’90s, American University had an acceptance rate of nearly 80%. In recent years, the acceptance rate has swung widely, falling as low as 26% before rebounding...
Cornell’s most recently published acceptance rate, an 8.4% mark for the Class of 2028, was just a touch higher than the prior year’s 7.3%. The university has not released...
With roughly 77,000 applications from those wishing to join the Class of 2029, Boston University has entered the realm of the most desirable private universities on the planet. It...
Applicants to the Brown Class of 2030 were greeted with a 5.35% acceptance rate, drawn from a record 47,937 applications. Given that 19 of every 20 applicants are turned...
When applying to a school like Carnegie Mellon that only accepts 11% of applicants, it’s important to keep in mind that the other 89% of applicants will ultimately be...
With a 4.7% acceptance rate, the lowest in school history, getting into Duke in 2026-27 is as daunting a challenge as gaining acceptance into just about any Ivy League...
August 12, 2026
Consider the rower first. Nine of the twenty-six elite Division III colleges in this analysis field rowing at all. At those nine, rowing accounts for about 20 roster places...
Division III describes Bowdoin College, where 34 percent of full-time undergraduates play a varsity sport. It also describes New York University, where 1.8 percent do. Both admit fewer than...
August 5, 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...
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...
Most universities that draw more applicants become harder to enter. Case Western Reserve did the opposite. Its applicant pool grew from about 33,000 for the Fall 2021 class to...
August 4, 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...
July 30, 2026
A high school senior in Bucks County opens her Penn State decision in December and finds good news and a complication in the same letter. She is admitted to...
Picture a student sitting down in October to decide whether to apply to Tufts under early decision. The commitment is binding, it arrives before any aid offer, and the...
Rice’s admit rate has barely moved in three years. It read 7.88 percent for the Fall 2023 entering class, 8.00 percent for Fall 2024, and 8.01 percent for Fall...
