Of course there’s Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. But within just an hour or two from Philadelphia, New York, and Washington DC, Muhlenberg College’s academic partnerships allows students to choose from outstanding accelerated pre-professional programs: a BS/MD with Boston and Temple, and Penn State Universities, a Public Health MPH also at BU, a Masters in Finance with American University, Engineering with the University of Pennsylvania, Dental with SUNY Albany, and a Law deg

The Predictions For most of 2020, conventional wisdom held that applications would be down this year, for a few reasons: In March and April, nearly every element of the economy plummeted, so it was assumed fewer families would be able to afford college tuition. This was expected to hit ED especially hard, since families would not want to commit without knowing how much financial aid they’d get. Many colleges expected that their applicant pools would be more geographically lim

My colleagues and I are stymied by the number of EA deferrals so far this year, especially for students who would ordinarily be relatively easy admits, especially at Tulane, UVM, and several other popular schools. While we are "prepared to go with the unpredictable" as much as possible this year, here are some probable reasons. Of course, money and politics factor into the equation: Increased awareness of colleges because of virtual tours led to increased applications. Many s

I have had a flurry--no, a snowstorm--of last minute emails asking me to help students with essays for Cornell, Yale, Boston College, Duke, Tufts...you get the picture. These are essays that require a lot of time for both the student and me. I truly hate to say no to families, but as most of you know, I don't work after December 20th. My business philosophy is to reduce the stress of a stressful process by getting all of the work of applying to college out of the way early, i

Hi Students and Families, Warning: there's a lot to read here, but it's worth the time if you are applying to the most selective colleges. 2021 will be a year unlike any other in college admissions. First, we worried that 2020 deferrals would eliminate spots for 2021 grads, and fortunately, we know just the opposite is true. Simply put, colleges will need to admit students because of the loss of tuition dollars, both institutionally and from governmental aid. Test optional ad

My professional colleague Jeff Selingo found that few schools want to publicly release the numbers of students submitting scores so early in the process, partly out of fear a low number might encourage a wave of applicants who have no shot of getting in. So far, the number of applicants with test scores is lower than what was expected. Here’s a snapshot of the percentage of students who have submitted scores, with some context for the type of institution based on their accept