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University of Rochester gearing up for summer and beyond

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University of Rochester Awards for High School Juniors.

University of Rochester’s Pre-College Programs are open to rising 9th through rising 12th-grade students who want to get a taste of college life, and luckily for current high school students who’ve yet to plan for Summer 2023, Rochester is still accepting applications for these immersive experiences.

The selective private research university offer residential programs during the month of July for one- to three-weeks through which students stay on beautiful campus, work with real professors, and interact with like-minded peers from all over the world. Students get a chance to dig into their favorite subjects in science, the humanities, and the arts, and discover what truly fascinates them. The full list of programs, dates and deadlines, and details about the application process can be found here.

Meanwhile, the University of Rochester High School Awards program has opened nominations for qualified high school juniors to be considered for the university’s four prestigious awards:

  1. Bausch + Lomb Honorary Science Award: High achievement in science and math, contribution to the larger community
  2. Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony Award: Commitment to community action and social issues, strong academics in humanities and social sciences
  3. George Eastman Young Leaders Award: Strong leadership, extensive extracurricular activities
  4. Xerox Award for Innovation and Information Technology: Leader in innovation, new technology and/or new approaches to old problems

Counselors, teachers, or administrators may nominate up to four qualified juniors, one student for each award. The student will receive a certificate, congratulations letter, and physical token that will be mailed directly to the nominator and can be presented at an award ceremony of their choosing. Should nominees continue their interest in the University of Rochester, they will have their admission application fee waived and be considered for a merit scholarship worth at least $5,000 per year.

Counselors, teachers, or administrators can nominate students at Rochester’s High School Awards website by using their school’s CEEB code and the password HSAWARDS. Nominations are open until June 15, 2023.

Founded in 1850, the University of Rochester has a rich history and a reputation for academic excellence, particularly in the fields of music, optics, and health sciences. The university is also known for its strong commitment to interdisciplinary research and collaboration across different departments.

Rochester offers a range of undergraduate and graduate programs across its four schools: the College of Arts, Sciences and Engineering, the Eastman School of Music, the School of Medicine and Dentistry, and the School of Nursing. Students benefit from small class sizes, personalized attention from faculty, and access to cutting-edge research facilities and resources. The university also has a vibrant student life, with over 250 student organizations, a strong athletic program, and a commitment to community service.

University of Alabama to close application on May 1 for Non-Residents

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The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

Due to overwhelming demand, the University of Alabama (UA) undergraduate application will close on May 1, 2023, for out-of-state, first-time freshman who wish to enroll as a main campus student. To be considered for admission as a main campus student, students must submit their application and all supporting documents by May 1. Students interested in enrolling as a distance learning student may still apply after May 1.

UA defines out-of-state, first-time freshman main campus students as meeting the following criteria:

Meanwhile, registration for Bama Bound is underway. All new, incoming freshman and transfer students must attend orientation where they will register for classes. Bama Bound will help students build community, learn the ins-and-outs of being part of the Crimson Tide and start shaping their pathway to success. Bama Bound also offers Sibling Orientation for rising freshmen through rising seniors in high school.

The University of Alabama is known for its strong school spirit and football culture. The campus is full of traditions, such as the Roll Tide cheer, and the university takes pride in its history and traditions.

What many out of state students don’t know when they first think of the university is that the University of Alabama has an Honors College that offers specialized courses, research opportunities, and personalized academic advising for high-achieving students. Honors students can also live in the Honors College Living-Learning Community.

The university also values community service and encourages students to participate in service learning opportunities. Students can work with community partners on projects that address social, economic, and environmental issues. In addition, the Career Center at the University of Alabama offers a variety of resources to help students with career planning, job search strategies, and networking. Students can also participate in career fairs, on-campus interviews, and other career-related events.

Colby Working to Help Rural Students Attend College

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Colby College has announced that it has been selected as an inaugural member of the Small Town and Rural Students (STARS) College Network.

The STARS College Network is a group of sixteen colleges and universities across the United States working together to increase access, affordability, and college advising for students from rural and small-town communities. The other current colleges STARS colleges include Brown University, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Case Western Reserve University, Columbia University in the City of New York, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, The Ohio State University, The University of Chicago, The University of Iowa, University of Maryland, College Park, University of Southern California, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Vanderbilt University, Washington University in St. Louis, and Yale University.

As part of its membership, Colby will help fulfill a critical role as the sole small liberal arts college in the network, ultimately committed to helping students from small-town and rural communities enroll in, succeed at, and graduate from the undergraduate program of their choice. Events, workshops, and college access opportunities in conjunction with this new membership are in the works beginning as early as this summer.

Colby College is a private liberal arts college located in Waterville, Maine, in the northeastern United States.

With easy access to outdoor recreational activities, including hiking, skiing, and rafting, strong academic programs, particularly in the fields of environmental science, biology, and economics, a student-to-faculty ratio of 10:1, a commitment to becoming carbon-neutral by 2025 and large investment in sustainable infrastructure and practices on campus, a vibrant campus community with a wide variety of clubs and organizations, and a strong athletics program, Colby College offers a unique combination of academic excellence, environmental stewardship, and a dynamic campus community in a beautiful location.

Colby College has an Island Campus on Benner Island.

University of Chicago shared more about the STARS initiative as well, including the fact that it is supported by a $20 million gift from Trott Family Philanthropies, the foundation of University of Chicago trustee Byron and Tina Trott.

Regular Decision at Emory University becomes more selective

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Emory University’s campus.

Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, has become more selective to get into when applying Regular Decision.

While approximately 78%, of admission offers at Emory are made Regular Decision and roughly 22% of offers are extended to Early Decision applicants, that doesn’t mean an applicant’s statistical odds of getting into Emory Regular Decision are better than getting in Early Decision. The university, which accepts first-year applicants into two colleges – Emory College and Oxford College, has shared that in 2023 Emory College’s Regular Decision acceptance rate was 8.4% and Oxford College’s Regular Decision acceptance rate was 15.1% whereas Emory’s overall Early Decision I acceptance rate earlier in the 2022-2023 admissions cycle was roughly 37%. Last year (2022), Emory accepted 9% of students who applied Regular Decision.

2023-2024 Regular Decision (RD) Applicant Pool

Emory College Oxford College
RD Applicants 29,330 18,612
RD Admits 2,463 2,815
Offered Spot on Wait List 5,663
(plus additional 199 placed on wait list from ED II)		 2,991
(plus additional 37 placed on wait list from ED II)

Regular Decision Admitted Class Composition

Emory College
RD Class		 Oxford College
RD Class
Mean Recalculated GPA 3.92 3.90
25-75th Percentile Max Testing (of students who opted to share their SAT or ACT scores with us) 1470-1560 1470-1550
% Admitted Without SAT/ACT 36% 33%
# of States Represented 50 plus DC, PR, VI, Mariana Islands, and Guam 49 plus DC, PR, and Guam
# of Non-US Citizenships 71 58

Of course, final acceptance rates are contingent on what action occurs on Emory’s waitlist.

Interestingly, only roughly one third of those accepted to both Emory College and Oxford College Regular Decision did not submit ACT or SAT scores. These numbers were a bit lower than numbers released earlier this cycle when 38% of the admitted Emory College Early Decision class and 41% of the Early Decision class admitted to Oxford College applied without an ACT or SAT score.

For Regular Decision at Emory College, nearly 22% of domestic admits would be the first generation in their family to graduate from college. The most represented high school states in the admitted RD class are Georgia, California, New York, Texas, and Florida respectively and the most represented high school countries in the admitted RD class are India, Canada, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Singapore respectively. Approximately 9% of the Emory College RD admitted class are from rural or small town communities across the United States.

For Regular Decision at Oxford College, approximately 16% of domestic admits would be the first generation in their family to graduate from college. The most represented high school states in the admitted RD class, in order, are California, Georgia, New York, Texas, and Florida. The most represented high school countries in the admitted RD class, in order, are India, Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom and China. Finally, as was the case with Emory College, approximately 9% of the Oxford College RD admitted class are from rural or small town communities across the United States.

Ultimately, the university is aiming to enroll 1,420 students at Emory College and 525 students (up from 450 last year) at Oxford College this fall.

Emory will remain test-optional for first-year and transfer applicants during the 2023-2024 admissions cycle.

Brown’s Regular Decision Acceptance Rate Now 3.8%

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Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Brown University’s Regular Decision admission decisions will be posted on Thursday, March 30 at 7:00 p.m. US Eastern Time, and, as in previous years, most students will not be thrilled by the decision they receive.

According to Logan Powell, Brown’s Dean of Admission, Brown received 51,302 applications for the Class of 2027, which represents a 1% increase over last year and makes the Class of 2027 applicant pool the largest in the university’s history. Brown will make 1,730 Regular Decision offers of admission to the incoming Class of 2027 in addition to the 879 Early Decision admission offers made in December. The overall acceptance rate for the 2022-2023 admissions cycle was 5%, the Regular Decision acceptance rate was 3.8%, and the Early Decision acceptance rate was 13%.

A total of 18% of accepted students represent the first generation in their family to attend college, and this year’s admitted students come from 90 countries, all 50 American states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. The top countries represented outside the United States are China, Canada, the United Kingdom, India, and South Korea.

Of the 4,192 applicants to the Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME), 74 students were admitted with a 2% acceptance rate. Of the 916 applicants to the Brown-RISD Dual Degree Program, 20 students were admitted, also with a 2% acceptance rate.

If spaces in Brown’s entering class are available after the May 1 reply by date, Brown will make additional admission offers to students on its waitlist; yet, all spaces in the Program in Liberal Medical Education have been filled. The number of students admitted from the waitlist will depend on how many students accept Brown’s admission offers by May 1. In recent years, the number of waitlist spaces available in Brown’s incoming class has ranged from 15 to 120. Waitlist activity will conclude by mid-summer, and more information on the waitlist is available here.

Meanwhile, Brown will host two admitted student programs on campus for the Class of 2027. A Day on College Hill (ADOCH) will take place on April 14 and 21 for students who are able to visit Providence in person. Brown will also continue to support its admitted students with a variety of virtual programming that provides opportunities to explore, learn, ask questions and connect to Brown’s campus while showcasing Brown’s vibrant community.

NYU First Year Applications Spike 13%

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With its rapidly rising application numbers and rapidly dropping acceptance rate, New York University (NYU) is starting to live up to the classic lyric from the Frank Sinatra standard, “New York, New York:” “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.”

NYU’s notable application growth from first year applicants has led to the private New York City-based university receiving a startling 98,000 Regular Decision applications during the 2022-2023 admissions cycle. All in all, NYU received nearly 120,000 applications for its Class of 2027, which represents an increase of 13% from last year. In fact, NYU saw increases across all of its campuses and all of its schools in New York. NYU also has major campuses in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai.

The increased number of applications, combined with consistently growing yield rates over the past few years, has made for an incredibly competitive admission cycle that will lead to an overall acceptance rate “a number of percentage points lower than last year” according to Jonathan B. Williams, NYU’s Associate Vice President for Undergraduate Admissions.

Last year, (the 2021-2022 admissions cycle), NYU received 105,000 first year applications and had an overall acceptance rate of 12.2%. This means once it’s finalized, NYU’s overall acceptance rate will now be in or quite close to the single digits. As recently as the 2016-2017 admissions cycle, NYU was accepting over 20% of all applicants; that cycle NYU only received 67,000 applications.


Regular Decision applicants will receive one of several different decisions on Tuesday, March 28, 2023 depending on the options selected on their applications:

Admitted Students
In the vast majority of cases, students who are admitted receive an offer of admission to their first-choice campus and school. Students not admitted to their first choice are then considered for admission to an alternate choice school or campus. Students will receive only one decision from NYU, and no students are admitted to any campus, program, or major that they did not explicitly indicate interest in on their application.

Waitlisted Students
With such an incredibly competitive applicant pool, NYU’s Undergraduate Admissions team needed to make difficult decisions about students who presented very competitive applications. Students offered a place on NYU’s waitlist will be required to confirm that they wish to continue to be considered for admission should space become available. Typically, NYU does not review its waitlist until after May 1.

Waitlisted students may be admitted to begin in Fall 2023 or admitted to programs with Spring 2024 start options, specifically: Liberal Studies Core and select majors within the School of Professional Studies, Tandon School of Engineering, and the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.

According to Williams, NYU’s waitlist comprises less than 15% of its applicant pool, and it is not ranked. Waitlisted applicants should not send any additional information beyond what is requested on the waitlist response form.

Denied Students
While rejection is hard, at least it may be a bit easier knowing that nine out of ten NYU applicants are meeting the same fate. Hopefully such applicants had some safety options on their college lists.

Boston University’s Overall Acceptance Rate Drops to 10.7%

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Boston University (BU) will be notifying Regular Decisions applicants tomorrow, Saturday, March 25, 2023.

According to Kelly A. Walter, BU’s Associate Vice President for Enrollment & Dean of Admissions, “It has been the single most challenging admissions cycle of my career given that we received 80,492 applications for just 3,100 seats in our first-year class…we had to make some extraordinarily difficult decisions about who was admitted to the class.”

BU’s overall acceptance rate during the 2022-2023 admissions cycle fell to just 10.7%. Last year, BU got a similar number of applicants but accepted roughly 14% of them.

Walter added that, “since we have been significantly overenrolled for each of the past two years, it was absolutely critical for us to plan for yet another increase in yield. As a result, we had no choice but to significantly decrease the number of students to whom we offered admission.”

BU’s Early Decision acceptance rate was roughly 25% this cycle.

Northwestern Releases Regular Decisions, Class of 2027 Statistics

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Northwestern University, located in Evanston, Illinois, finalized is Regular Decision selection process and notified applicants of their decisions today, Friday, March 24.

Overall, Northwestern reviewed over 52,000 first-year applications from over 10,000 high schools around the world for a class that will ultimately only include roughly 2,100 students, according to Liz Kinsley, Northwestern’s Associate Dean & Director, Undergraduate Admission. Last year Northwestern reviewed 51,554 applications.

Northwestern previously admitted about half of its incoming Class of 2027 through Early Decision, and the university’s overall admit rate will stay roughly 7%. Northwestern’s Fall 2022 ED applicant pool grew by 3.5% to just over 5,200 applicants. This means that Northwestern’s Early Decision acceptance rate now hovers around 20%. In addition to growth in volume, Northwestern saw growth in the number of secondary schools represented in its ED pool of applicants: the number of schools represented by ED applicants was up 22% overall with a 25% increase in U.S. public schools represented.

Students admitted Regular Decision have until May 1 to accept their offer. Official steps toward enrolling in the Class of 2027 are outlined on Northwestern’s Admitted Student Website and will also be mailed with an admit packet.

For applicants offered a place on Northwestern’s waitlist, the deadline to accept a waitlist offer is May 1. Students who accept a waitlist spot before April 15 will be asked to reconfirm their interest in the waitlist on that date; the university will reach out via email with reconfirmation steps. Northwestern’s waitlist is unranked, and waitlisted students are welcome to write the admissions office if they’re still particularly interested in Northwestern. Additional materials should be uploaded via the applicant portal or emailed.

In other news, high school students in the Class of 2024 should know that Northwestern has confirmed that it will remain test-optional for the 2023–2024 admissions cycle.

Northwestern University’s campus in Evanston, Illinois, USA.

Rice admissions decisions released March 27

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The wait is almost over for high school seniors who applied Regular Decision to Rice University in Houston, Texas.

Rice will release admission, scholarship, and financial aid decisions for each Regular Decision applicant in his or her Rice Admission Student Portal on Monday, March 27 after 5:00 p.m. Central Time.

Dr. Yvonne M. Romero da Silva, Rice’s Vice President for Enrollment, encourages every Regular Decisions applicant to log in to their portal ahead of Monday’s release to ensure ease of access, and if a student should have any problem logging in, he or she should contact the admissions office at [email protected] for assistance.

Rice University is a private research university located in Houston, Texas. It was founded in 1912 and has since become known for its strong focus on undergraduate education, innovative research, and world-class faculty. With an undergraduate enrollment of around 4,250 students, Rice University is a small, tight-knit community that offers a highly personalized educational experience. The university has consistently been ranked among the top 20 national universities by U.S. News & World Report and is known for its excellent programs in engineering, natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities.

The university’s campus spans 300 acres and features a mix of modern and historic buildings, including some designed by renowned architects such as Michael Graves and Philip Johnson. In addition to its academic programs, Rice University is home to a variety of research centers and institutes, including the Baker Institute for Public Policy, the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, and the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology. The university is also home to numerous cultural and recreational facilities, such as the Moody Center for the Arts, the Rice Media Center, and the Rice University Art Gallery.

Good luck to those who’ve applied to Rice’s Class of 2027.

WashU Receives Fewer Applications, Releases Regular Decisions March 23

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Washington University in St. Louis will release admission decisions for Regular Decision applicants in the late afternoon on March 23, 2023. The university will notify students via email on March 23 when decisions have been posted to the WashU Pathway.

This news comes as Ronné P. Turner, Washington University’s Vice Provost of Admissions & Financial Aid, shared that the selective private St. Louis university received over 32,000 applications from “wonderful young people around the globe” this admissions cycle. WashU received 33,214 applications last year for its Class of 2026.

Waitlisted students have until April 15 to respond affirming that they would like to remain on the waitlist, and they can do so by submitting a form through their WashU Pathway. A waitlisted student is also welcome, though not required, to submit updates he or she feels may help the WashU admissions team better understand the student’s application, and again, this can be accomplished via the Application Updates form in the WashU Pathway.

Turner added, “Our selection process is guided by a diverse committee of admissions professionals in an effort to ensure that, together, our five academic divisions create a community that is welcoming, nurturing, and intellectually rigorous.”

Overall, as of this time, for its Class of 2027, WashU admitted 3,644 students as follows: 2,401 students to its College of Arts & Sciences, 364 to the Olin Business School, 236 to the Sam Fox School (101 for Architecture and 135 for Art), 636 to its McKelvey School of Engineering, and 27 to its Beyond Boundaries Program. As a result, WashU’s overall admit rate for the 2022-2023 remains at at roughly 11%.

Admitted students will have access to WashU’s Admitted Student Portal once decisions are released. This portal will be their primary source for information about on-campus visits and virtual opportunities to engage with our admissions team and community. Students have until May 1 to submit their acceptance forms and enrollment deposits via the Pathway.

Meanwhile, students who applied for financial assistance can view their offer in the WashU Pathway. In addition, admitted students will receive more information about housing in mid-April and orientation in May.