Top Tier Admissions
The junior year of high school intimidates students long before it arrives. It looms like a bully, threatening total exhaustion, unimaginably difficult classes, and high expectations. But students forget that each year of high school prepares them for the next; they have been building the skills and prerequisite knowledge one year at a time. But […]
Every spring, families watch acceptance rates drop a little further — and ask the same question: what does it actually take? The 2025–26 cycle offered some answers. Admissions offices are reading more carefully, cross-referencing more deliberately, and growing more skilled at identifying what’s genuine versus what’s been engineered to impress. We recently hosted a webinar […]
Many years ago, I headed to college planning to major in English, and I graduated four years later with an English degree. Recent studies, however, reveal that my straightforward pathway was likely the exception, rather than the rule. Many students officially enter college as “undecided,” and even more (estimates range from 30% to 85%) change […]
I still remember the well-loved leather chair where I sat drinking black coffee in a coffee shop on Nassau Street while reading Delaying the Real World: A Twenty-Something’s Guide to Seeking Adventure. It was May 2006: I had just turned in my senior thesis—a 100-page philosophical treatise on morality and the nature of blame—and my […]
Every admissions cycle, families search for shorthand ways to understand prestige. One phrase appears again and again in Google queries and parent conversations alike: “the Harvard of the South.” It’s an unofficial and hotly contested title often used to describe elite Southern universities with rigorous academics, selective admissions, and national (or global) reputations. But which […]
Calling All Juniors!
Your August Edge Starts Here:
Application Boot Camp®
Complete your Common App and supplemental essays, build a school list aligned to your profile, and develop a clear admissions strategy—guided by the Top Tier Admissions team. In our 22 years running Boot Camp, our counselors have helped thousands of students earn admission to the country’s most selective colleges.