Top Tier Admissions
As we’ve seen through recent rankings shake ups over the last few years, some of the most prominent college ranking systems are deeply flawed and strategically manipulated to bolster institutional prestige and application volume. The Princeton Review’s Best Colleges for 2024 rankings offer a different approach: they’re based solely on student survey responses. While this […]
This week, Money Magazine released their list of the best colleges in America based on an analysis of over 700 four-year colleges. Their new methodology places colleges into one of six star ratings (from 2.5 stars to 5 stars) based on data points including graduation rates, cost of attendance, financial aid and alumni salaries. They […]
In July 2022, we provided a deep dive into college rankings and the investigation into the accuracy of Columbia’s self-reported data for U.S. News and World Report (USNWR). We get many questions about how both USNWR and The Forbes rankings are calculated. Last year’s controversy over accusations from a Columbia professor led the university to […]
Application volume across the University of California’s nine campuses surged nearly 23% within the past three years alone, with university-wide first-year applications totaling a whopping 210,840 in Fall 2022, compared to 203,700 applications in 2021 and 172,099 in 2020. It’s no wonder the UC system is so popular: with affordable in-state tuition ($13,752 for the […]
When asked “what is a liberal arts college?” or “why study the liberal arts?” by students and parents, Top Tier Admissions co-founder Dr. Michele Hernández often cites an article by Dr. James Tatum from Dartmouth College. Classics — and, more broadly, liberal arts — Tatum argues, grants people the “power to see what is going […]
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