Type the name of a college or university in the search bar and you’ll find general information about enrollment, tuition, degrees, etc.   You will also find a map showing the location of the school with one-click access to satellite images from Google.

The well-designed interface with Google Earth and Google Maps makes for an easy and interesting campus tour.

While you are there, check out some of the other amazing features of Wolfram|Alpha at http://www.wolframalpha.com

The Stanford Daily reported this information ahead of Shawn Abbott’s departure for New York University.   Abbott wrote in an email to the Daily, “It looks as though our yield this year will be our strongest ever.”

Stanford University Director of Admission Shawn Abbott resigned effective May 14, 2010 to begin a new job at New York University.

Abbott’s four-year tenure at Stanford has seen record numbers of applicants to the university. Stanford set another record this spring by admitting only 7.2%of more than 32,000 applicants to the Class of 2014.

Before coming to Stanford, Abbott was senior associate director of admissions at Columbia University. Prior to that, he worked in admissions at Boston University.

Around 64% of students accepted their offers of admission to join the MIT Class of 2014,  about the same percentage as last year, according to admissions director Stuart Schmill ‘86.   The enrolled class of 2014 will have around 1,070 students and a demographic makeup similar to the class of 2013, he wrote in e-mail. The admissions office is working to select “a small number” of students to admit off its waitlist over the next week and a half, wrote Schmill.

Previously The Tech, reported Senior Associate Dean for Residential Life Karen Nilsson as saying the class of 2014 “might” have around 1,300 students, over 200 more than the class of 2013.  That information was incorrect.

MIT’s overall acceptance rate for this year’s admissions cycle was 9.7%.   A total of 16,632 students applied, and 1,611 were admitted to the Class of 2014.

The admission rate fell a full percentage point from 10.7% for the Class of 2013.

If you are a rising freshman or transfer students looking for a college to attend for Fall 2010, the National Association for College Admission Counseling released its May 2010 list of colleges still accepting applications.   The list includes more than 200 colleges and universities throughout nation.

Many of the schools have openings for both incoming freshmen and transfer students. Most have financial aid available, as well as campus housing.

The list, provided by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, can be downloaded to excel, and sorted by state and various other attributes.  Click here to access the Vacancy List.

Many students skimp on college research because they consider it time-consuming or they don’t know where to start.  Checking out graduation rates by institution is easy.  You just need to know where to look.

College Results Online (http://www.collegeresults.org) provides interactive tools to query graduation rates at four-year colleges and universities. In addition to providing college-specific graduation rates and other data (e.g. cost, financial aid), the comparison tool provides analogous information for similar colleges.

Check out  InLikeMe’ s Fifteen A+ Resources for Researching Colleges and Universities for a quick tutorial designed to help  students and parents can quickly get up to speed about individual colleges, affordability and admissions policies.

While advanced math isn’t for everybody, many colleges view those who passed Calculus AB or BC as students with the ability to successfully take on rigorous colleges courses, especially those involving math and science.

For those deciding on their high school, curriculum, keep in mind that many college admissions people have a favorable impression of students who succeed in challenging math classes.

Those interested in learning more about Brown University will find a wealth of insight and information in the recent five-part series “Branding Brown” that appeared in The Brown Daily Herald.

Part 1 - Shedding Light on the Surge in Applications – focuses on student responses to the application question, “Why does Brown appeal to you?”

Part 2 - Honesty is Tour Guides’ Policy – focuses on Brown’s image, and how it promotes that image to prospective applicants.

Part 3 - On TV and the Web, Sifting Through Images of Brown - The University’s visibility has skyrocketed.

Part 4 - Is Brown’s Popularity a Passing Trend or here to stay? John F. Kennedy, Jr. ’83 was one of the first in what some say has become a trend of celebrity students attending Brown.

Part 5 - The ‘University-College’ on the Hill

Read Branding Brown (the five-part series) at The Brown Daily Herald.

6,678 students were accepted in total — 5,502 students accepted through the regular decision process and 1,176 admitted early.  Overall, Cornell admitted 18.4% of applicants to the Class of 2014.    Cornell has become significantly more selective in the past decade.  According to the University, 31% of applicants were admitted to the Class of 2007.

According the the Cornell Sun, the admitted class has mean SAT scores of 710 verbal and 740 math.  For the Class of 2012, the average verbal score was 700, and the average math score was 720.

Cornell reported to have admitted 256 recruited athletes and 753 legacies.

Like many other highly-competitive schools, Cornell has a large wait list.   According the Cornell Sun, 2,563 applicants were placed on the wait list.

More information is available at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/29776594/2010-Cornell-Admissions-Statistics

Researchers have studied a phenomenon known as the superstar effect focusing on the performance of participants in challenging situations.  While conventional wisdom may be that challenging competitions bring out the best in people, these recent studies showed the opposite.  When competing against a peer who seems far superior, instead of rising to the challenge, many people choke and give up.

College entrance exams are no exception.   In a paper released last year, researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of Haifa compared average SAT scores with the average number of students in test-taking venues in all 50 states, and found that students who took the SAT in larger groups did worse. The researchers concluded that knowledge and sight of competitors decreased motivation and performance.

The lesson from the study –  it’s  a good idea to sit at the front of the exam room when taking a hard test.   If you don’t see peers in front of you, you can concentrate better on the exam and will be less likely to harm your performance by comparing yourself to others.

Applications to the Class of 2014 were up 19.5% from the 21,963 students who applied for the Class of 2013.

The University placed 1,451 students on its wait list.  According to the Daily Princetonian, Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye said in an interview that she expects only about half to choose to stay on the list.

From The Daily Princetonian:

• Students admitted to the Class of 2014, half of whom are male and half of whom are female, hail from all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and 64 countries.
• More than 9,280 applicants had GPAs of 4.0, while roughly 13,650 had a combined score of 2100 or higher on the three sections of the SAT.
• Roughly 60 percent of the class will receive need-based financial aid. The average grant is expected to be more than $36,000. To accommodate these needs, the scholarship budget will increase by 9 percent next year, from $103 million to $112 million.