Here are Ten Important College Admissions Trends, for students applying to colleges:

The most recent results from the National Association for College Admissions Counseling’s annual survey of what is transpiring in the world of college admissions follow.

1. College Enrollment Is Up
As of 2009, 20.4 million students were enrolled in college, representing 70 percent of all students who completed high school that year.

2. College Applications Are Up
Almost 73 percent of the colleges responding to the survey reported an increase in the number of applications received.

3. College Acceptance Rates Are Down
Overall national acceptance rates declined from 71 percent in 2001 to 65.5 percent in 2010. The most competitive national universities and colleges have acceptance rates in the low double and single digits.

4. Applications Per Student Are Up
More than 77 percent of freshman submitted three or more applications and 25 percent submitted seven or more applications.

5. Admissions Yield Is Down
Colleges are enrolling increasingly smaller percentages of their accepted student pool, declining in fall 2010 to 41 percent from 49 percent ten years earlier.

6. Admission From Wait Lists Is Down
Colleges accepted an average of 28% of all students who chose to remain on wait lists, down from 34 percent in fall of 2009.

7. On-Line Applications Are Up
On average, colleges received 85 percent of their applications online, up from 58 percent in 2006.

8. Admissions Selectivity Is Up
The national share of colleges accepting fewer than 50 percent of applicants rose to almost 20 percent in 2010.

9. Social Networking Is Up
The proportion of colleges linking admissions web-sites to social networking sites increased from 73 percent to 91 percent.

10. Emphasis on “Demonstrated Interest” is Up
The percentage of colleges attaching considerable or moderate importance to demonstrated interest increased from 48 percent in 2009 to 54 percent in 2010. Demonstrated interest is exhibited in different ways including a willingness to participate in interviews with college representatives.
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David Dickson is a counselor with Top Test Prep; Top Test Prep’s private tutoring programs allow students to improve test scores on subjects like the SSAT, ISEE (Private School) to colleges (SAT, ACT) to graduate schools (LSAT, MCAT, GRE). Call 1-800-501-7737 to learn more.

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This article discusses the best liberal arts colleges and topics like costs, admissions, and other topics like tuition.

The Challenge:
This is seemingly the best of times for the most competitive small liberal arts colleges such as Williams, Middlebury, Bowdoin, and Smith as applications soar and acceptance rates descend to the low double digits. Endowments have also bounced back since the onset of the recession. Presidents and financial officers at these institutions, however, are sounding the alarm on the longer-term repercussions of escalating costs. Tuition at four-year colleges and universities rose 28 percent over the past decade. At Williams, Middlebury, Bowdoin and Smith total costs including tuition, room, board, and student fees are significantly more than $50,000 a year.

Moreover, with high levels of financial aid and per-student spending, the elite colleges face the prospect of dramatically increased costs placing financial strain on even the best managed institutions. For instance, Smith College spent $61,655 per student in 2009, $47,113 of which went to education-related expenses. By comparison, the nearby University of Massachusetts, Amherst, a public research university, spent $31,762 per student in 2009, $18,048 of which went to education-related expenses. As the sticker price of competitive small liberal arts colleges continues to grow, admitted students may increasingly be scared away and qualified students discouraged from even applying. Short of becoming an exclusive preserve of the wealthy at home and abroad, how can America’s elite liberal arts schools address this dilemma? Achieving financial solvency, maintaining diverse student bodies, and not abandoning their mission of a broad interdisciplinary liberal arts education is a tall order.

Solutions
In the short-term, tuition adjustments are an option at some schools. The president of Middlebury College announced last year that the college would cap tuition increases at 1 percent more than the rate of inflation. The vice-chancellor at the University of the South recently announced that the university would cut tuition by 10 percent and focus on need based aid as opposed to merit aid. In the longer-term new revenue sources must be found, however. In 2010, Middlebury college acquired the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Smith College, according to an internal report, is considering the establishment of a task force to explore post-baccalaureate educational offerings and other programs that enhance the college’s “reputation and revenue structure.” Colleges are expanding partnerships and consortiums with other institutions to expand course offerings to enhance their appeal to prospective students, without a commensurate increase in overall costs. The most wrenching change, however, would be an alteration of the liberal arts curricular model to incorporate more explicitly professional and vocational programs for students focused on the bottom line once they leave school. Non-elite liberal arts colleges have already begun to move in this direction.

Conclusion
America’s most prestigious small liberal arts schools will be with us for the foreseeable future. The manner in which they adjust to an increasingly cost conscious and vocationally oriented public, however, will determine what a liberal arts education will mean for future generations.

David Dickson wrote this article as an admissions counselor and expert for Top Test Prep.

Top Test Prep offers admissions experts and private tutoring programs to help students get into the best private schools, colleges and grad schools. Call 1-800-501-7737 to learn more.

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A just released study by the Center for Education Statistics provides a profile of American college students. Selective results of the study entitled, “2008-09 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study” follow.
Majors Twenty-three percent of 2007-08 first time bachelor’s degree recipients majored in a business-related field; 16 percent in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics; 16 percent in a social science; and 12 percent in the humanities.

Education After College
As of the 2009 interview date, 30 percent of 2007-08 first-time bachelor’s degree recipients had enrolled in another education program or had been accepted to a program and would enroll in the 2009-10 academic year following the interview date. Three percent had entered or were entering a program leading to another undergraduate certificate or degree, and the remainder had entered or were entering a graduate or first professional certificate or degree program.

Employment After College and Earnings
When interviewed about a year after completing their degree requirements, 84 percent of 2007-2008 first-time bachelor’s degree recipients were working; 9 percent were unemployed ( i.e. looking for work, but not working); and 7 percent were not in the labor force.
Among 2007-08 first-time bachelor’s degree recipients who were employed full-time, one quarter earned less than $27, 457 while another quarter earned more than $49,200 in 2009. The median earned income was $36,000.

Conclusion
Students who attend nationally competitive institutions of higher learning earn incomes beyond the median, and have the opportunity to enter highly ranked graduate and professional programs with a commensurate increase in opportunity and earning potential. Top Test Prep will assist you in gaining admission to your top schools – call today to learn more – (800) 501-Prep.

David Dickson is a college admissions counselor with Top Test Prep; Top Test Prep provides private tutoring and expert admissions counseling for students applying to the best schools.

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Have you ever wondered how college grades today compare with grading in the past? How much grade inflation is there, and how common is it for professors to mark student’s scores arbitrarily higher? According to a new study published in Teachers College Record by researchers from Duke University and Furman University contemporary students have been the recipients of widespread grade inflation. Historical data was collected from 200 four year colleges and contemporary data from 135 schools. There has been an increase of 28 percent since 1960 and 12 percent since 1988 in the percentage of A’s awarded in higher education.

Grade distribution figures for different higher education sub-categories follow.

University and College Grade Distribution by Sub-Category

-Private Non-Profit Universities: A’s 48.2%; B’s 35.2%; F’s 2.3%

-Private Non-Profit Colleges: A’s 42.7%; B’s 36.6%; F’s 1.9%

-Public Flagship Universities: A’s 42.3%; B’s 34.5%; F’s 3.6%

-Public Satellite Universities: A’s 41.7%; B’s 32.0%; F’s 5.4%

-Public Commuter Universities: A’s 39%; B’s 31.8%; F’s 6.3%

Conclusion
More regulation of grades by universities and departments could alter the decades-long trajectory of grade inflation, but there are few signs that steps are being taken. Students and their families should recognize that even high grades may not distinguish them from many of their peers when they apply to graduate and professional schools. Attending a “brand school” helps, but the importance of standardized graduate and professional school tests including the LSAT’s and GRE’s has increased markedly. Top Test Prep offers tutoring and test preparation with admissions experts who help you gain admission to your top schools.

David Dickson is a counselor with Top Test Prep’s tutoring and admissions programs. Call (800) 501-7737 to learn more.

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Recent years have witnessed a proliferation of university and college evaluation systems using criteria which differ from the highly visible and academically geared US News and World Report ratings. Washington Monthly magazine has come out with an interesting ranking system focused on which colleges do the most for the public good. The three broad criteria it uses are social mobility (recruiting and graduating low income students); research (producing cutting edge scholarships and PhD’s); and service (encouraging students to give something back to their country). The top ten national universities and liberal arts colleges by their contributions to the social good in 2010 with their overall scores follow.

Top Ten National Universities
1. University of California, San Diego 100
2. University of California, Berkeley 97
3. University of California, Los Angeles 93
4. Stanford University, Stanford, CA 87
5. University of Texas, Austin 83
6. University of California, Davis 81
7. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 79
8. Syracuse University, NY 78
9. Harvard University, MA 78
10. College of William and Mary, VA 77

Top Liberal Arts Colleges
1. Morehouse College (GA) 100
2. Bryn Mawr College (PA) 94
3. Swarthmore College(PA) 89
4. Berea College (KY) 89
5. Amherst College (MA) 85
6. Harvey Mudd College (CA) 80
7. Williams College (MA) 79
8. Spelman College (GA) 77
9. Wesleyan College (MA) 76
10. Wellesley College (MA) 76
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Students and their families are encouraged to examine alternative evaluative systems for institutions of higher learning when deliberating on colleges. This should be supplemented by college visits and meetings with faculty or staff in possible majors to discuss class size, the percentage of professors teaching who are tenured or tenure-track, and graduate school and job placement success.
David Dickson is a counselor with Top Test Prep which offers private tutoring and test preparation with admissions experts who help you gain admission to top schools. Call (800) 501-Prep to learn more.

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At a time of rising college costs and skepticism about the merits of a college education, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine has tackled the topic of institutions which offer the best educational value to their students. Its rankings measure academic quality and affordability with quality accounting for two-thirds of the total. Kiplinger’s ranking criteria for four year institutions with a broad based curriculum, and the rankings themselves for the 2010-2011 academic year follow.

Ranking Criteria for Best Public and Private Universities:

SAT or ACT: shows the percentage of the freshman class that scored 600 or higher on the verbal and math SATs, or 24 or higher on the ACT.
Students per faculty: the average number of students per instructor.
Graduation rate: the percentage of freshman who earned a bachelor’s degree within four years or five years.
Total cost for the current academic year: includes tuition, mandatory fees, room and board, and estimated expenses for books.
Cost after need-based aid: the total cost minus the average need based aid amount (excluding loans).
Aid from grants: the percentage of the average aid package that came from grants or scholarships.
Costs after non-need based: the cost for a student with no demonstrated need after subtracting the average non-need based aid amount (excluding loans).
Non-need-based aid: the percentage of all undergraduates without need who received non-need-based aid.
Average debt at graduation: the average amount owed by graduates who took out education loans.
To break ties, academic quality scores and average debt at graduation were used.
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Best Values in Public Universities
1. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2. University of Florida, Gainesville
3. University of Virginia, Charlottesville
4. The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA
5. University of Maryland, College Park
6. State University of New York at Binghamton
7. State University of New York College at Genesco
8. University of Georgia, Athens
9. University of Wisconsin, Madison
10. University of Washington, Seattle

Best Values in Private Universities
1. Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
2. Yale University, New Haven, CT
3. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
4. Rice University, Houston, TX
5. Duke University, Durham, NC
6. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
7. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
8. Columbia University, New York City
9. Brown University, Providence, RI
10. Dartmouth College, Hanover, MA

Best Values in Liberal Arts Colleges
1. Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA
2. Pomona College, Claremont, CA
3. Williams College, Williamstown, MA
4. Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA
5. Davidson College, Davidson, NC
6. Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME
7. Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA
8. Amherst College, Amherst, MA
9. Hamilton College, Clinton, NY
10. Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY

Conclusion
A more comprehensive and detailed analysis of the best values among institutions of higher learning can be found at Kiplinger’s website. Navigating the application process for these institutions can be facilitated through a private college counselor.
David Dickson is a private counselor at Top Test Prep which offers tutoring and test preparation with admissions experts who help you gain admission to your top schools. For information on private tutoring and admissions counseling, call (800) 501-Prep.

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On Monday, we looked at a list of the top twenty schools with historically low acceptance rates. Remember what we saw? Two things were the conspicuous absence of public universities and the absence of many top private institutions like Johns Hopkins, Notre Dame, and Tufts. Keeping an open mind is important in the college application and admission process – as we’ve discussed previously on the Top Test Prep blog, ratings and lists are useful but knowing how they are constructed is essential. So what can we learn from looking at institutions with historically low acceptance rates?

First – Academic Competitiveness

Low acceptance rates mean colleges can be selective about who comes to their school. With a large applicant pool, admission counselors can admit students who are motivated, productive, and likely to succeed in a challenging learning environment. Not only is gaining admission into these schools competitive, the work and intellectual foundation will be, too. Whether or not this means you will be in the best learning environment for your style of learning is up to you to decide.

Second – Respected Reputation

Competition starts somewhere, and for competitive schools with low acceptance rates, this is largely built from their reputation. Reputation can take years to establish and promote. In the academic world, good advertising is not enough – the product (the graduates) must show results and success in careers and future academic endeavors. Successful graduates – in and of themselves – promote and give their institution credibility.

Reputation is not everything – many schools outside of top 20 or top 100 lists, turn out astute scholars and CEO executives– but reputation does carry weight both in academic and professional worlds.

Third – Wide Popularity

If a school is academically competitive and has a respected reputation, it might still have a high acceptance rate. In those cases, colleges generally have a more self-selected type of student body. One of the driving forces in creating low acceptance rates is the large number of applicants (who flock to these schools because of their competiveness and reputation). With a large group of applicants and a limited amount of spots for the incoming class, acceptance rates are driven down – as we've seen happen this year. Wide popularity and name recognition are important parts of increasing the number of applicants.

The factors that create low acceptance rates are all interconnected. A competitive program without an established reputation – or a solid reputation in specialty circles, but not widespread popularity – will not create low acceptance rates. These schools with low acceptance rates tend to be famous, name-branded ones, which is also important. That does not mean students should rule out a college if its acceptance rates are higher than 20%. Low acceptance rates are one way to view schools. If you are a student who thrives in a rigorous academic environment and expects college not only to produce a solid academic foundation, but a strong alumni network and recognition on your resume and transcript – colleges with low acceptance rates might be your kind of school.

____________________________________________________________________________

This post is titled, "What Do Low Acceptance Rates Show?" It was written by Marta Casey, a writer on Top Test Prep's team.

To learn more about Top Test Prep's programs, call (800) 501 – Prep.

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Year after year, lists ranking schools come out and everyone dithers to pick apart the ranking criteria. That said, knowing the process of how different lists rank schools is important – you might agree or disagree with the ranking methods and find your own way to prioritize schools. But one list that is historically sound and purely numbers-based is this: the top 20 schools with lowest acceptance rates.

Every year a new list comes out of colleges with the lowest acceptance rates. But overall, the list contains the usual suspects. Here is a list of the top twenty colleges with the lowest acceptance rates historically. (Note: The acceptance rates are the average rates of these institutions, not the rates from this year, which have declined, overall.)

1. Harvard – 7 %
2. Yale – 8 %
3. Stanford – 8%
4. U.S. Naval Academy – 10 %
5. Columbia – 10%
6. Princeton – 10 %
7. M.I.T. – 11%
8. Brown – 11%
9. Dartmouth – 11 %
10. U.S. Military Academy – 15%
11. California Institute of Technology – 15%
12. Amherst College – 16%
13. Pomona – 16%
14. Claremont McKenna – 16%
15. U.S. Air Force Academy – 17%
16. Swarthmore – 17 %
17. U Penn – 18 %
18. Duke – 19%
19. Washington and Lee University – 19%
20. Cornell – 19%

What do you see from this list? It’s short – only 20 schools – and might not have colleges you would expect to see, like Bowdoin, Wellesley, Middlebury, Berkeley, Rice, or the universities of Michigan and Virginia. In the past few years, other institutions have been breaking through the top 20 schools. Consider that when you rank schools in your own head or read other lists.

What else can you observe? Besides military academies, these are all private colleges. If we were to separate the list into public and private universities, there would be other names up there – Wisconsin, UCLA, and the College of William and Mary, for example. Those are great institutions, too.

When the official admission rates come out for the class entering college in fall 2011, we'll take another look at this list. Next week, we'll also be looking at early decision rates.

This post is titled, "Colleges With The Lowest Acceptance Rates." It was written by Marta Casey, a writer on Top Test Prep's team.

To learn more about Top Test Prep's programs, call (800) 501 – Prep.

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Last week Princeton and Harvard each announced the return of their early admissions programs. Early admission has not been an option at either school since 2006, when the institutions decided to cancel their programs at the same time.

Princeton and Harvard stopped offering early admission with the hope that it would allow students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds apply. The institutions also expressed expectations that other colleges would follow suit; however, only the University of Virginia did, and only for a brief time. Last year the UVA began to offer its early admission program again.

In its daily newspaper, Princeton said that instead of reinstating a binding early decision option, which was offered from 1996 to 2006, it will offer a “single-choice early action option.” That will give students who are offered early admission the option of waiting to reply until the spring, and to learn about financial aid options.

"We have carefully reviewed our single admission program every year, and we have been very pleased with how it has worked,” Princeton President Shirley M. Tilghman said in a University press release that was quoted in the Daily Princetonian. “But in eliminating our early program four years ago, we hoped other colleges and universities would do the same and they haven’t."

In the Harvard Crimson, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith is quoted from a statement saying that trends have shown that "underrepresented minority students, were choosing programs with an early-action option, and therefore were missing out on the opportunity to consider Harvard."

For students planning to apply to Princeton or Harvard – it means that the option of early admission has returned, and this time, without a binding enrollment agreement. Now, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Stanford offer non-binding, single-choice early action programs.

This article is titled, "Early Admission to Return to Princeton and Harvard." It was written by Marta Casey, a writer at Top Test Prep’s team.

To learn more about Top Test Prep’s programs, call (800) 501-Prep.
 

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Dartmouth, Harvard, Connecticut, Colby, Michigan, Macalaster, and Berkeley — the trend of rising application numbers for the class of 2015 has spread across the country and is setting record numbers at many schools.

Applicants this year were seemingly undeterred by the slow economy and the rising cost of college. Ivies and traditionally selective schools saw significant increases in the number of applicants and Harvard hit a record high of 35,000 applicants for its incoming freshman class. The trend hit the Midwest and West, too. Case Western Reserve University in Ohio and Macalaster College in Minnesota saw 44% and 40% jumps, respectively, from last year's applications numbers.

In Harvard's newspaper the Daily Crimson, Harvard Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William Fitzsimmons cited financial aid awareness as one of the main reasons application numbers have increased. In the past, Ivies and many private universities seemed like places only for the wealthy, which is no longer the general perception, Fitzsimmons said.

Daniel de Vise in The Washington Post, conjectured that it is more likely that numbers spiked because students are applying to many more schools, not an overall increase in students. In a similar vein, the NY Times, said the one possible reason in increased applications is the more widespread use of the Common Application at many colleges, like Columbia and the University of Michigan — which each accepted the Common Application this year and saw increases of 32% and 18% in application numbers.

While large universities like UCLA, UC-Berkely, and the University of Pennsylvania had increases and received their usual tens of thousands of applications, small, competitive liberal arts colleges have also seen large increases. Colby College in Maine has a 22% increase from last year, and Davidson in North Carolina had a 15% spike.

Numbers are definitely up and competition for acceptance to top schools is rising. But there are two reasons in the trend students can take comfort in. First, the Common Application will allow students to apply to more schools to increase chances of acceptance. And second — as cited by Yale and Harvard's financial aid offices, among others — even as the economy moves along sluggishly, more aid continues to be available than in the past.

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Early Decision and Early Action | College Admissions Information on Ivy League Schools:

Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, Penn and Yale

Brown University

• Regular Application Deadline, January 1
• Regular Admission Decisions sent in April
• Yes, Early Decision Accepted (send application by November 1)
• Average Acceptance Rate, 15%
• Early Decision Acceptance Rate, 22%

Columbia University

• Regular Application Deadline, January 2
• Regular Admission Decisions sent in April
• Yes, Early Decision Accepted (send application by November 1)
• Average Acceptance Rate, 10%
• Early Decision Acceptance Rate, 23%

Cornell University

• Regular Application Deadline, January 2
• Regular Admission Decisions sent in April
• Yes, Early Decision Accepted (send application by November 1)
• Average Acceptance Rate, 18%
• Early Decision Acceptance Rate, 30%

Dartmouth College

• Regular Application Deadline, January 1
• Regular Admission Decisions sent in April
• Yes, Early Decision Accepted (send application by November 1)
• Average Acceptance Rate, 15%
• Early Decision Acceptance Rate, 25%

Harvard University

• Application Deadline, January 1
• Admission Decisions sent in April
• No Early Decision or Early Action accepted
• Average Acceptance Rate <10%

Princeton University

• Application Deadline, January 1
• Admission Decisions sent in late March or early April
• No Early Decision or Early Action accepted
• Average Acceptance Rate <10%

University of Pennsylvania (Penn)

• Application Deadline, January 1
• Admission Decisions sent in April
• Yes, Early Decision Accepted (send application by November 1)
• Average Acceptance Rate <15%
• Early Decision Acceptance Rate, 35%

Yale University

• Application Deadline, January 1
• Admission Decisions sent in April
• Yes, Early Action Accepted (send application by November 1)
• Average Acceptance Rate <10%
• Single School Early Action Acceptance Rate, ~18%

__________

For more information on our Ivy League Admissions Counseling, call us at (800) 501-Prep.

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How college admission offices use social networking sites‚ and why that matters for your MySpace, Facebook and other pages

Imagine taking the time to fill out your college app, write a stellar essay, then ending up being rejected from your top college choice or a scholarship opportunity because an admissions rep checked out your Facebook page and didn’t like what was there.

It happens.
Never before has it been so simple for admissions officers to get extra information about students. Simply looking at someone’s Facebook or MySpace page can be an excellent indicator as to whether or not they really fit the personality picture that their application painted.

A 2009 Survey performed by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) found that 88 percent of admissions officers said that social networking sites (such as Facebook or MySpace) were either somewhat important or very important to their current and future recruitment efforts.

How to deal?
Of course, there are some ways to avoid the negative impacts of social networking. Here are some.

1. Don’t use them. The simplest way to avoid this problem is to avoid social networking sites altogether.

2. Turn all privacy settings on. With applications such as Facebook, you can control who is able to view your profile. While applying to colleges, it may be worth turning all the privacy settings on.

3. Ask your friends and family for their opinion on your profile. Have them look at your profiles to ensure they won’t have a negative impact on your reputation. They will often give you the most objective opinion as to whether that latest party photo is too risky.

4. Always err on the side of caution. Here’s a good rule of thumb: If you think your social networking activities are too risky, then take the profile down.

Always consider the impact that social networking can have on your applications. Taking the time to do so now will ensure you aren’t left wondering why your application was denied.

Ross Blankenship is the president and director of TopTestPrep.com. He is an admissions expert who has helped students get into top prep schools, colleges and graduate schools through Top Test Prep’s private tutoring and admissions consulting programs.

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How much would you estimate schools spend to lobby or market to improve their rankings?

The ranking system is sort of lobby-proof. Talking to US News isn’t going to improve your ranking because they are based on quantitative numbers, a formula, but certainly schools send out brochures, try to raise their profile among other presidents and deans because of the academic survey. I think it‚ it’s more subtle how they are spending money to improve in the rankings. With Washington University or UNC, they may be spending money to improve student services so they get a higher graduation rate. The way to improve in the rankings is through the institution itself, not by lobbying US News, which is actually a good thing because students benefit from that.

How has your formula changed over the last ten to fifteen years?

At the beginning they were 100% reputation, and today they are 25% reputation and 75% quantitative data, so that is certainly one change. We’ve de-emphasized admissions data to some degree. We’ve switched the weight to output like graduation and retention rates. We’ve also dropped the yield rate from the admissions data.

Which colleges, in your opinion, will be making a jump in the rankings?

University of Rochester has been falling recently. For the next few years, the rankings are going to be impacted by the recession. States have been cutting the budgets of the some of the major public schools. It’ll be interesting to see whether the UCal schools can maintain their position. It’s unclear whether the tuition increase is going to be enough to cover the budget cuts. They may start taking more out-of-state students. The UCals take almost no out-of-state students, so there is talk that they are going to take a greater percent of out-of-state students because their tuition is so much higher. It’s going to be harder for in-state students to get into the public universities from their own state as those schools accept or enroll a greater proportion from out of state as a revenue enhancer.

If the UC schools drop in the rankings, who comes up?

Some of the privates who have been managed [constructively] may be able to maintain their budgets. Some of the private college endowments have really fallen. The way these rules work, you have to average your endowment spending over x number of years, so that will have an impact on their budgets. There are rules: you have to spend 4 or 5% of your endowment each year, so if your endowment is shrinking, that’s why schools like Harvard have to cut back. The point is, it’s hard to know how all these cutbacks and trends are going to impact the rankings because it’s happening in both public colleges and private colleges in different ways.

I know that schools have tried to emphasize their alumni giving. That’s how schools game the rankings, by boosting their alumni giving rate. We’re not counting the average contribution; we’re counting the average portion of alumni that are giving…but it’s not a heavily weighted factor.

How do you see the ranking system changing over the next few years?

Using the web, we can create a use-your-own-ranking. Students can develop their own ranking, so if they think the student-faculty ratio is more important than U.S. News does, they can weight our factors using their own weights to come up with where they stand. We’re going to build more interactive features on our website, trying to take advantage of what the internet offers to students.

I think maybe within a few years there will be more outcome measures, more ways of viewing the student experience: student engagement or student learning. That’s what is missing from the rankings: some indicator of what’s going on in the classroom, or how much students have learned.

Do you think that U.S. News would benefit from factoring in what students do after graduation?

Definitely. But [right now] it’s only spotty data. We measure what happens after graduation in our MBA rankings and our law rankings because we have placement data, career outcomes for the most recent class, but there’s nothing like that available at the undergraduate level. Yes, if there were data like that, it would be pretty powerful.

Have any notable schools called or emailed to contest their rankings?

Schools call and contest their rankings all the time. The schools don’t really lobby us…rather schools call about their rankings. A couple years ago we had something about UC Davis saying that they had misreported some data, and they called up all upset about it. What you find, the very top schools like the Harvard, Yale, and Princeton’s….they will try to stay above the fray. They don’t send out press releases and they’re not going to be in contact with us on the rankings.

A lot of it is, Why [do] they rank the way they do, or, Explain how the rankings work, or,where’d you get that data – because in some cases if they’ve assigned filling out the surveys to some other office, then when the rankings come out, a senior person in the president’s office says, Well that can’t be right. Of course we can prove that we got it from the school. Sometimes you can call up two or three offices at the same school and get slightly different answers to the same questions. So we face that when we collect data from schools.

This concludes Top Test Prep’s in-depth interview with Bob Morse of U.S. News & World Report. Stay tuned for some more great interviews with college admissions experts.

Ross Blankenship is an education and admissions expert who helps students and media organizations better understand the college rankings and US News and World Report. To contact Ross, call (800) 501-Prep to speak to his admissions expert team.

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Meet the man behind the single most influential list in college admissions. Bob Morse is the Director of Data Research at U.S. News & World Report, the head of its revered college ranking system. As the force behind a series of annual publications that have achieved unanticipated fame within higher education, Bob Morse has helped to create the college ranking system as it exists today. He was nice enough to sit down with Top Test Prep and answer some questions.

Start by telling us a little bit about yourself.

I’ve been at U.S. News since 1976. I have a BA in economics and an MBA in finance, so I have a research and quantitative background. Doing the rankings is a research and quantitative analysis project. It’s not journalism in the sense that even though I do have a blog, the rankings themselves aren’t reporting … they’re creating information, while typical journalism is reporting on an event or analyzing an event or giving context to something that’s happened.

You have a blog?

I write the blog once or twice a week called Morse Code: Inside the College Rankings. Prior to the blog, U.S. News wouldn’t really write about rankings except at the time that we published the college and grad rankings, so the blog gives us the ability to make announcements.

How did you get connected to U.S. News & World Report?

I worked on Wall Street briefly, at a company called E.F. Hutton. A lot of them don’t exist anymore as they merged away but I used to work there in the mid-70′s. I was at U.S. News, but in another department. It doesn’t exist anymore; it was a research department called the economic unit.

U.S. News was moving from doing the rankings just based on reputation only in the very beginning, before I was involved, they were done very simplistically, in ‚1983 and, 1985. They wanted to make them more sophisticated.

How did the rankings come about?

At the beginning … we didn’t have the thick guidebook and we didn’t have the web, so it was just something that appeared in the weekly magazine in a very limited sense, sort of a top ten list. It was not some guerrilla force in admissions or higher ed, it was just information for consumers and our readers. Nobody thought that it was going to evolve into anything but an occasional feature or cover story. In 1987, I was put in charge (of college rankings). We were going to make it more sophisticated, a combination of reputation and quantitative data, and we were going to start doing this annual guidebook. I got involved in it because they wanted someone with a quantitative research background.

How do you assess a school’s reputation?

It’s become one of the more controversial parts of the rankings; controversial among people in the higher education establishment. The rankings themselves aren’t controversial to the public. The public, obviously, uses them and is attracted to them to a significant degree or otherwise we wouldn’t keep doing them.

We give college presidents and admissions deans and provosts a list of schools and we ask them to rate which ones are excellent and good, so it’s a subjective judgment about the relative standing of schools based on their academic reputations. The academic establishment doesn’t like that – or some of them don’t. Maybe liberal arts schools don’t. I think research universities do.

What’s most interesting to you about the college rankings?

A couple things. One, how it’s become this force in higher education. Some colleges are trying publicly to do better in the rankings and make educational decisions to improve in the rankings. I think that’s pretty interesting.

I think that we’ve filled an informational gap. There’s been a decrease in high school counseling- not at private schools, but at public schools;  high school counseling has been diminished by budget cuts, and the public is really searching for tools to help them decide what’s the best school for them. So they’re forced to make decisions on their own and fend for themselves. It’s been satisfying that we’ve been able to fill this informational void. People are becoming more quantitative in judging the best schools.

Another interesting thing is that we’ve been part of this accountability movement. Schools are being held accountable for how they spend money, and whether they’re succeeding in educating students: how well are they doing at what they’re supposed to be doing. So it’s been interesting to be part of all these trends.

Which colleges have seen their university rankings improve the most over the last two or three years?

The rankings are more stable than people think. Typically over a two- or three-year period, the rankings don’t move that much, but I think two schools … University of Southern California and Washington University in St. Louis … have over the last decade or so made a strategic decision-  they have a strategy to improve themselves, and their strategy is across-the-board improvement, step-by-step. They take small steps each year institution-wide, and that’s the formula to improve in the rankings.

What kind of steps are college taking to shape their ranking (small or large)?

They’re not small in the sense that they’re little things. They just do them a little bit each year. For example, [a college] would raise the SAT average, so maybe one year it was 1200, the next year it was 1225, the next year it was 1250 ‚ but they wouldn’t go from 1100 to 1300 (SAT) in one year; they would do it over a ten-year period. Or they would increase the freshman retention rate. They’d put money into increasing freshman retention. The graduation rate would be another one, or faculty salaries. They might put more emphasis on small classes and reduce the number of large classes. They’ll do this a little bit each year, focusing on many factors of the academic environment.

To be continued …

Ross Blankenship is an education and admissions expert who specializes in prep school, college and graduate admissions.  He’s also an expert on the US News and World Report College Rankings. To read more about Ross Blankenship, go to: Admissions Experts.

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Below we have posted the Ivy League Application Statistics to help give you a sense of how competitive the Ivy League has become. The college admissions statistics are for the fall of 2008 entering class, but reflect a greater trend for more selectivity within these top colleges including this upcoming Fall 2009 Ivy League Class. These Ivy admissions numbers are bound to become more selective this fall as a result of the economy as well as consistent US News and College Report rankings.

Ivy League Applications Statistics

Our College Admissions Consultants can help you get into these top schools. Call us today at (800) 501-Prep or fill out or free admissions consultation.

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We’ve had many students ask us what colleges have the best engineering and science programs. Using a weighted average of faculty resources, technology grants, class size, and student ratings, we have developed the following list to help guide students and parents in the process of college counseling. The list provides a concise summary of these top engineering and tech programs. For more information, contact Top Test Prep directly.

(1) California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
Cal Tech is the top ranked tech savvy college. The school is packed with great professors and has a niche in the California technology industry, including Google and Yahoo. Cal Tech is highly recommended if you’re interested in entering Silicon Valley and have a knack for inventing new technologies. Their undergraduate program is one of the best for students interested in individual research projects with professors and Cal Tech is a key part of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Some key specialties: Natural Sciences, Biotechnology, Space Sciences
Famous alumni: Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of Intel Corporation; Charles Francis Richter, creator of the Richter Magnitude Scale;
SAT range for incoming students: 2200-2350
Acceptance rate: 17%

(2) Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
MIT is a great school with unique resources for its students. If you’re interested in graduating with the famed MIT degree, and want to be immersed in high quality education, every day, then this is a great place to be. With more Nobel prizes than one could count in an hour, they define excellence in engineering. Their high alumni giving suggest generations of families are happy with their educational choice. MIT probably has the highest name recognition worldwide amongst scholars and students.

Some key specialties: Artificial Intelligence, Aerospace Engineering
Famous alumni: Col. Buzz Aldrin, NASA Astronaut; IM Pei, world-renowned designer and architect; Robert Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet and founder, 3COM;
SAT range for incoming students: 2070-2340
Acceptance rate: 13%

(3) Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Cornell is one of the few colleges with engineering research programs that allow students to work directly under renowned professors. With faculty like Bill Nye (the science guy) and Steven Squyres of the NASA Mars Rover program, you will have the opportunity to learn from the best. Be prepared to work harder at Cornell than you would at most colleges. Cornell’s unique engineering science facilities include newly built Duffield Hall, which represents the university’s next high-tech step.

Some key specialties: Engineering Physics, Nanotechnology, Biomedical Sciences
Famous alumni: Steven Squyres, principal science investigator for the Mars rovers; William F. Friedman, founder of the study of cybernetics;
SAT range for incoming students: 1940-2240
Acceptance rate: 24%

(4) Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

Founded originally as Carnegie Technical Schools in 1900 by industrialist Andrew Carnegie, the school is primarily known for its science and research. Carnegie Mellon hosts the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense and operated by Carnegie Mellon University. In addition, they host the Robotics Institute (RI), a division of the School of Computer Science. Overall, its solid reputation amongst scholars and education journals is a reason why students should look to this school.

Some key specialties: Computer Science, Software Engineering
Famous alumni: James Gosling, creator of the Java programming language; Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems; Vinod Khosla, billionaire venture capitalist and co-founder of Sun Microsystems;
SAT range for incoming students: 1940-2235
Acceptance rate: 34%

(5) University of Texas, Austin, TX

Considered to be one of the Public Ivies in America, the University of Texas has fantastic resources for their students. As a public university, it spends almost 50 percent of their engineering budget on sponsored research. UT’s Cockrell School of Engineering enrolled 67 new National Merit Scholars in 2006-2007, the university’s largest proportion of new National Merit Scholars. UT Austin enrolls the third highest National merit scholars nationally. Plus, Texas is a great state with awesome weather and friendly people. Definitely keep UT-Austin in mind when applying to college.

Some key specialties: Petroleum Engineering, Computer Engineering
Famous alumni: Michael Dell, Founder and CEO of Dell Computers; Rex Tillerson, Exxon Mobil Corp. chairman and CEO.
SAT range for incoming students: 1680-2055
Acceptance rate: 49%*

*Note that this admissions rate will be affected by Texas’s top ten percent law, which guarantees graduating Texas high school seniors in the top 10% of their class admission to any public Texas university

Brought to you by Top Test Prep and the Education Expert, Ross Blankenship
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Here’s a great way to create the best study schedule for the SAT…

Want to help your teen ace the SAT exam? The key is to establish a schedule for studying and then stick to it. Sure, spending an hour or more studying may sound like a drag. But by the time the big day rolls around, your teen will be the most relaxed student in town while his classmates are wishing they’d trained to get into SAT shape. Here’s a step-by-step guide to getting underway.

I. Time frame:

The best study schedule will encompass a period of 1 to 2 months. Your schedule should be for five days a week over the entire period.

II. Finding Time:

Decide how much time can be devoted to studying each night, while making allowances for homework and extracurricular commitments. It should be at least one hour, and preferably 2 to 3 hours, per night.

III. Making a Plan:

Write out a schedule for studying. Each night focus on one area of the SAT. If your study time extends past an hour, be sure to schedule a break every hour. Each week re-make the schedule to fit what needs to be studied the most.

IV. Studying:

When it comes time to study, ensure your child has a place that is quiet and free of distractions (no computers, phones, television, video games, etc). If needed have them go to a library to study.

V. Practice Tests:

Finish each week’s schedule with a timed practice exam. This allows you to refocus next week’s schedule, and also to gauge your son or daughter’s progress.

VI. Sticking to the Plan:

It isn’t enough to just make a plan. Obviously you have to ensure that your teen sticks to the plan. A gentle reminder each night will probably be enough to keep them from procrastinating.

A Sample Schedule (for one week):

Monday: Study vocabulary for 1 hour. Take a break. Further improve reading comprehension by going over the answers to a practice test for 1 hour. Focus on the wrong answers and learning why they are wrong.

Tuesday: Study Geometry rules for 1 hour. Take a break. Practice by doing 30 practice questions in two different sections of previously released SATs.

Wednesday: Work on reading comprehension. Do three long passages from a practice SAT and then answer the questions accordingly. Take a break. Work on English grammar (writing) skills by studying questions from a practice exam.

Thursday: Do four sections of the math test on a practice SAT. Take a break. Study the areas where you got the most answers wrong.

Friday: Take a timed practice test. Use the exact breaks allotted on the Reat SAT .

When the week is finished, hone your schedule for the next week (based on the practice test results). For example: If your teen needs to focus on one area more than another rearrange next week to compensate. Working this way over the course of a month will ensure they’re ready when the test comes.

Ross Blankenship has been an instructor and tutor, and worked in college admissions at Cornell University. He is the founder of Top Test Prep, a test prep and admissions company, offering test prep, college admissions counseling and advice for students and parents

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There are several college admissions myths which should be exposed before you apply. These myths often scare certain students from applying to the best schools. Never limit yourself from applying to top colleges because you believe these things:

(10)

Applicants are pre-screened.

Whether using the common application or a school-specific application, college admission offices have enough staff members to read your entire application. After all, you pay an application fee for a reason and colleges want to make sure you get your fair chance. However, if your application is incomplete or missing crucial components (essays, transcripts, or supplements) this might explain why it is rejected, or pre-screened out, before it reaches the full committee.

(9)

You must choose your major and stick to it.

When you apply to college, admissions officers know your major is bound to change. In fact, many admissions offices have reported that the majority of their students change their major by the end of their freshman year. Don’t worry about choosing your major. Pick a department or major where you have a genuine interest, and be open-minded to changing it once you’re enrolled.

(8)

You must apply early decision or early action.

Yes, applying early decision or early action shows a student is committed to a particular college. But you do not have to apply early to be accepted, even to top colleges. In fact, if you’re deferred in the early decision or early application round, your application goes right back into the regular pool and will be re-evaluated again.

(7)

Colleges have a certain profile of the perfect student.

While colleges strive to admit students who will fit into their college, there’s simply no way for a college to predict whether a student will be happy or whether they will actually succeed at their college. This is why colleges don’t set a particular admissions profile for the “perfect” student.

(6)

Ivy League schools don’t give scholarships.

Although Ivy League schools say they only allocate need-based scholarships, there’s no doubt that certain schools issue other grants and fellowships based on other criteria. If you’re a top athlete, recruit or a national merit scholar, an Ivy League school will go out of its way to make sure you can afford their school.

(5)

International students don’t receive scholarships or loans.

More colleges are looking to diversify their student body with international students; major banks and financial institutions offer the same financial opportunities for international students as they do American applicants. Scholarships and fellowships are available for international students.

(4)

You should pad your resume with extracurricular activities.

Every admissions officer is a human being. Imagine that. Applications aren’t accepted or rejected by a computer. So when filling out this section of the common app, know that admissions offices can (and do) spot superfluous extracurricular activities. Further, they can certainly tell whether you added an extracurricular because you have a genuine interest or because it looks good on your resume.

(3)

Recommendations don’t matter.

Great recommendations are vital. You cannot expect to be admitted simply with high scores and great grades. If an admissions officer sees a perfunctory or suspicious recommendation, it will set off a red flag. Bottom line: choose the person writing the recommendation who knows you best and make sure they know where you’re applying and what your qualifications are.

(2)

There’s a GPA Cut-Off.

Colleges generally don’t have a GPA cut-off. The reason admissions offices don’t have a GPA “cut-off” is because students come from all sorts of different high schools with varying curriculums and grade structures. Some students attend public schools, others private schools where the GPA ranges could be wider or narrower. Further, there has been much discussion about grade inflation, and colleges do know what particular high schools tend to have higher GPAs than others. Whether this is so-called grade inflation or not, the schools have an idea of what schools have a more competitive curriculum, including more AP, IB and honors courses. Be aware of your GPA and explain discrepancies in your transcript.

(1)

There’s always an SAT/ACT Cut-Off.

Some state colleges do have a cut-off for SAT/ACT scores. But the majority of American Universities do not. So keep working on your test scores but don’t fear the mythical cut-off.

If your SAT or ACT Prep isn’t as strong as you’d like it to be, TopTestPrep.com will help you improve your SAT and ACT scores.

Hope these admissions myths were answered. If you have any questions, feel free to contact the Top Test Prep team.

-Ross Blankenship, Education Expert and Founder, Top Test Prep

Test Prep and Admissions

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Part of applying to colleges is knowing how colleges value early decision or early action applications. Here’s some more data on other top schools. Note the most selective colleges have a goal or “quota” for the number of students taken from each in coming class vis-a-vis early decision pools. Top Test Prep can help you figure out exactly how to get into top schools whether you apply early or regular decision.

This article on top college admissions tips was written by admissions expert, Ross Blankenship.

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Below you’ll find some key data from top college admissions offices.

Top Test Prep has analyzed the early admissions programs and top college statistics for the past few years and has provided this information to the public. Download and view some of the admissions data.

This article on college admissions statistics was written by admissions expert, Ross Blankenship.

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