IvyWise KnowledgeBase

With admit rates at historic lows and more students applying to more colleges than ever, it’s important for students to make sure they’re submitting the best applications possible.

Whether you’re a sophomore preparing to take your first standardized test or a junior retaking the SAT or ACT to achieve your goal score, performing well is on the minds of many students. One thing remains consistent for students of all ages, however — test anxiety. 

For most undergraduate students, graduate school is a possibility, but many aren’t sure until closer to application time. By then, you’ve passed many opportunities to work on areas that will influence your application to graduate school. Even if you’re not entirely sure which field you’ll be pursuing in a few years, it’s important to get involved the moment you step foot on campus to ensure that you’re making the most of your time in college and that you have the best chance of gaining admission into a top-choice graduate school.

Whether you love Emily Dickinson’s slanted rhyme, Allen Ginsberg’s beats, or Langston Hughes’ Renaissance jazz, you have many college options to study this literary art form. If you’d like to pursue your passion for poetry in college — be it writing, history, analysis, or performance — the expert counselors at IvyWise have identified five great schools where you can find poetic inspiration.

Students tend to have a one-dimensional view of what community service entails. If they’re not tutoring younger students or serving meals at a local homeless shelter, what other community service is there? In reality, high school students can find various ways to make an impact — the possibilities are endless! 

For students expecting early decisions, it’s easy to imagine how they’ll react to their admissions outcomes — whether it’s an acceptance or a rejection. But there’s another possibility on the table that many students forget to prepare for: a deferral.

Gone are the days of paper applications, when admissions offices had stacks of files in cabinets and had to go through them all by hand. In today’s environment, your application is completed, uploaded, and read online. So, when all the required components are submitted, how does your application navigate through the admissions process in the digital age? What materials are filtered by computers, and where does the difficult decision making happen?

The admissions process, while time-consuming and complex, is also fun and fascinating. Below, we’ve included some important college admissions statistics, facts, and figures that will help you understand the trends in admission over the past decade.