college applications

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Harvard Applications Fall After a Rough Year
Harvard Applications Fall

Harvard Applications Fall

Several Ivy League competitors that have had quieter years report increases

(Newser) - After months of criticism of Harvard that included the resignation under fire of its president, student applications for the university's next freshman class have dropped to a four-year low. Figures released Thursday show the school received 54,008 undergraduate applications for the class of 2028, the Wall Street Journal ...

Super High Achiever: Teen Accepted by 113 Colleges

Jasmine Harrison was also offered $4.5M in merit-based scholarships

(Newser) - Jasmine Harrison is not just another high achiever. The North Carolina high school student got a thumbs-up from an astounding 113 colleges and universities. "When I got the first couple in the mail, I was like, 'Okay, this is really happening,'" Harrison told WFMY News 2...

Stanford Accepts Teen With Unusual Application Answer

Ziad Ahmed simply wrote '#BlackLivesMatter' 100 times in answer to one question

(Newser) - Repeating the same phrase 100 times on your college application wouldn't seem, at first glance, to be a winning strategy for gaining acceptance to a highly competitive school. But for Ziad Ahmed, it was part of what got him into Stanford, CBS News reports, with the university calling the...

New Website Makes It Way Easier to Apply to College

More than 80 universities are taking part

(Newser) - More than 80 universities have promised to make the college application process easier through a new website where students will be able to submit applications to many schools, and get coaching to compile a "digital portfolio" of their academic accomplishments. Some of the top names in higher education are...

University to Rejected Students: 'Embrace the YES!'

Johns Hopkins apologizes to 294 students who received erroneous email

(Newser) - "Embrace the YES!" is the encouraging message sent over the weekend to college applicants who had recently been told … no. Hence the confusion at Johns Hopkins University, which on Sunday mistakenly sent a cheery email to 285 students who had already been denied admission, the Washington Post...

Teen Who Got Into Every Ivy Makes His Pick

He says Yale is best for his passions of music, medicine

(Newser) - Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania are out of luck: The Long Island teenager who scored the amazing feat of being accepted by all eight Ivy League schools has picked Yale, saying a campus visit where he "met geniuses from all over the world...

Teen Gets Into Every Single Ivy League School

Kwasi Enin's achievement is as rare as you'd expect

(Newser) - There are eight Ivy League colleges, and Kwasi Enin can have his pick. The 17-year-old has managed to get into every single one, a feat officially achieved with last week's acceptance from Harvard. USA Today confirms that it saw scanned copies of all the "congratulations" letters (from Brown,...

SAT Scores: Not So Hot at Predicting College Success
SAT Scores: Not So Hot at Predicting College Success
STUDY SAYS

SAT Scores: Not So Hot at Predicting College Success

High school grades a much better indicator of likely college success: study

(Newser) - The SATs were created to offer a way to help less-privileged students show their skills—but these days, the stressful tests "serve more to truncate access than to open it," says William Hiss, a former dean at Bates College. He and his team have conducted what could be...

Women's College Rejects Transgender for Being 'Male'

Smith turns down Calliope Wong because home state considers her a boy

(Newser) - A transgender student had her application to Smith College rejected because a government financial aid form indicated she was a "he," reports USA Today . Calliope Wong, who was born male but has identified as female for years, got this letter in reply to her application:
  • "Smith is
...

UCLA Sets College Application Record

More than any other four-year school

(Newser) - It sounds like UCLA is this year's hottest ticket. The school has received a record 99,559 undergraduate applications for Fall 2013, up 8.8% over the year prior. For comparison's sake, the New York Times points out that's greater than the population of Santa Monica. And,...

Harvard Swamped by Early Applications

Early admissions program reinstated for first time since 2007

(Newser) - The Occupy movement has reached some college campuses , including Harvard, with some demonstrators protesting high tuition. But apparently current high school students have not been swayed, because Harvard has been absolutely flooded with early applications: 4,245 as of yesterday, to be exact, a number that is more than twice...

Harvard Applications Up 50% in 4 Years

School sees 50% jump in applications over 4 years

(Newser) - Harvard has drawn 35,000 applications this year—a 15% increase over last year and a whopping 50% increase in four years. That means about 6% of Class of 2014 applicants will be admitted, compared to about 9% of Class of 2010 applicants. About one in 50 high school seniors...

College Waiting Lists Bigger Than Ever

Uncertain economy has schools, students hedging bets

(Newser) - The odds aren't looking good for the 3,382 high school seniors currently wait-listed by Duke—the college thinks it will probably end up taking only about 60 of them. Duke is far from the only college to dump record numbers of applicants into admissions purgatory this year, as economic...

U. Penn Adds 'Gay' Box on Application, But ...
U. Penn Adds 'Gay' Box on Application,
But ...
OPINION

U. Penn Adds 'Gay' Box on Application, But ...

... there are better ways to serve LGBT students

(Newser) - That the University of Pennsylvania is adding a box on its application form students can use to indicate sexual orientation—and has asked the makers of the widely used “common application” to do the same—is nice, Gabriel Arana writes, but perhaps misguided. Schools and students alike would be...

High Schools to Graduate Sophomores

It's part of a European-style experiment to improve education

(Newser) - About 100 high schools in 8 states will soon embark on a European experiment that could have students going off to community college after 10th grade. Sophomores who pass a battery of board examinations would be free to graduate early, or stay to prepare for application for more selective universities....

High School Seniors: Skip College
 High School Seniors: 
 Skip College 
opinion

High School Seniors: Skip College

Taking a year off makes sense for most

(Newser) - A private consultant who makes a living helping high school seniors get into college has some unexpected advice for them: Don't do it. Take at least a year off instead, writes Gwyeth T. Smith. Yes, the idea of the "gap year" has been around a while, but the lousy...

Colleges Use Student Blogs as Free PR

Warts-and-all posts by undergrads can lure savvy prospects

(Newser) - Colleges are loosening the reins on student bloggers in hopes that a dose of candid commentary will lure prospective applicants. At MIT, for instance, bloggers paid by the admissions office go about their work with no fear of censorship. That policy has caused some friction—including a spat between the...

SAT Prep Classes Exaggerate Improvement, Study Finds

Use of own diagnostic tests clouds real results

(Newser) - Many test-prep companies make impressive-sounding guarantees about students’ SAT performance, but an independent study finds that the courses offer little real improvement. Part of the problem may be tutors’ use of too-hard mock tests to judge students’ baseline performance, producing a false inflation that’s used to justify thousands of...

Now NYU Goofs on Acceptance Notices

Congrats, you've been accepted —not!

(Newser) - Just to make college admission a tad more excruciating, New York University has become the latest school to screw up on college acceptance notices, reports the Los Angeles Times. Some 500 rejected applicants were erroneously emailed last week that they had been accepted into an NYU graduate program. Officials blamed...

Colleges Admit More Students Just in Case

(Newser) - Private colleges across the nation are boosting the number of students they're accepting and the length of their waiting lists in case applicants can't write the tuition check when the time comes, reports the Washington Post. Applications are at a record high 3 million, but universities fear students planning on...

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