College Admissions: The 7 Hottest Colleges

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Monday, February 07, 2011

COLLEGE ADMISSIONS by Cristiana Quinn, GoLocalProv College Admissions Expert

It’s still early, and many colleges have not yet released their statistics for the class of 2015 application pool, but some results are rolling in. Despite demographic studies showing that the number of college-age students has peaked and is now declining, applications did increase at many of the nation’s most competitive colleges. So, what were the hottest schools this year?
• Columbia applications surged 32%
• Dartmouth was up 18%

    •    UPENN and Harvard saw a 15% increase
    •    Yale increased 5%
    •    Brown and Princeton received 3% more apps

Among the Ivy League, only Cornell saw a decline in applications, with a minimal decrease of 1%. Columbia and Dartmouth attribute their record breaking year, in part, to increased outreach to minority students. Meanwhile, UPenn points to their elimination of student loans, and Harvard credits their free tuition program for families earning less than $60,000. Other highly competitive college outside the Ivy League also posted impressive numbers. U. Chicago, Duke, Georgetown, MIT, Northwestern, Stanford, Tufts, Washington U. and Vanderbilt all saw a 7-15% increase in applications.

Colleges with the most notable gains, so far this year:

    •   Case Western-45%
   •   Macalester-41%
   •   Babson-25%
   •   Dickinson 28%
   •   UCONN-24%
   •   Colby-22%

Colleges with significant declines in their applicant pools:

    •    Goucher-20%
    •    SUNY Stony Brook-12%
    •    Tulane-13%
    •    Elon-6%
    •    Wesleyan-6%

Cristiana Quinn, M.Ed. is the founder of College Admission Advisors, LLC, a private college admissions counseling company based in Providence, Rhode Island. www.collegeadvisorsonline.com