The National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC) publishes an annual report that tracks the trends in college costs, applications, admissions, and financial aid, among other things. It can be very useful to know what kinds of trends and what types of applicants are in the pool as you apply to college.
Marian Wilde has compiled some of this information in What Are the Latest College Trends? For example, it may help you to know that a college may look at your interest in attending their institution as an admission factor, and they determine your interest by tracking the number of admissions contacts you have with them such as communications with professors and taking college tours. You can note from this report, too, that extracurricular activities and your personal essay are tipping factors more for private colleges than for public colleges. You can read about one-stop state websites that allow you to take virtual tours of that state’s colleges and universities, find out about costs and financial aid, download applications, and even find free SAT help.
So know your competition and the lay of the land as you begin applying to college. College Basics has a short list of data about other college applicants. And, if you read Wilde’s article, you can also learn about flags and tags and their importance in the admission’s process, new trends for more selective colleges, how colleges calculate your high school GPA, the average tuition and fees for 4-year colleges, and how early decision may be changing.
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NEWS! CollegeBasics now has a new e-book The Basics for Writing College Application Essays: Simple How-to Steps for Writing All College Essays from the Personal Statement to the Short Activity Essay that outlines every aspect of writing the college application essay. This book explains how to write different kinds of application essays from the short activity essay to the personal statement to scholarship essays and more and offers samples of essays and essay edits. This book can really help you.
