Top Tier Admissions
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 […]
Georgia Tech, a public research university in Atlanta long considered both a “New Ivy” and a “Public Ivy,” admitted 8,715 students to the Class of 2030 from a record 67,985 first-year applications—an overall acceptance rate of 12.8%, according to the university’s Office of Undergraduate Admission. That figure caps a five-year stretch in which Georgia Tech’s […]
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 […]
In the 2025-2026 application cycle, colleges made some of the most significant changes to essay evaluation in a generation. The reason? Artificial Intelligence (AI). Some schools have dropped numeric essay scores. Others have begun to warn applicants that AI-generated text could cost them their admission. And a growing number of universities have added supplemental prompts […]
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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.