A readable daily digest of college admissions developments — testing policies, financial aid, federal enforcement, and enrollment — with Test Ninjas analysis of what it means for applicants.
A federal judge threw out the Justice Department's suit demanding Harvard's applicant-level admissions data, finding DOJ skipped required pre-suit steps. The ruling doesn't decide whether Harvard used race, and the government can refile.
UNC Chapel Hill will stop using racial data in admissions and keep scholarships race-neutral. In return, the Education Department closes 18 investigations and DOJ ends a compliance review. The agreement runs through 2028, with no payment and no admission of wrongdoing.
The mean SAT total for the class of 2026 hit 1045, up 16 points from last year's graduates. Scores rose in both sections and for every demographic group — the second straight year of gains, with more than 1.95 million students testing.
U.S. News' 2027 Best Colleges list puts MIT at No. 1, ending Princeton's 15-year run atop the rankings. The bigger change may be methodology: a new 'earnings by major' metric now compares graduate outcomes major-by-major instead of averaging across a whole school.
New Parent PLUS caps ($20,000/year, $65,000 lifetime) took effect July 1, with a 'legacy' provision meant to protect existing borrowers. Education Department guidance recalculating legacy status by credit hours instead of enrollment time is already denying loans mid-degree — one Texas Christian University senior found out twelve days before her senior year started.
New National Student Clearinghouse data shows 73.9% of low-poverty high schools' 2025 graduates enrolled in college that fall, versus 51.2% at high-poverty schools — a roughly 23-point gap that's barely narrowed. Persistence into sophomore year improved most at urban and rural schools.
Legacy admissions has collapsed nationally since 2015, from about 50% of colleges to just 23% today. But among the 89 colleges admitting 25% of applicants or fewer, 57% still weigh it — nearly unchanged from a decade ago.
A federal judge granted a nationwide injunction against the DHS rule ending "duration of status" for F-1 and J-1 students, hours before its September 15 effective date. The reprieve is temporary — the next hearing is October 2.
A joint DOJ and Education Department investigation found Berkeley Law used a diversity essay prompt and an identity form as backdoor ways to weigh race, giving Black applicants 5.8 times greater odds of admission than comparable white applicants in 2025. It's the second law school DOJ has targeted after Duke.
The State University System of Florida's Board of Governors voted unanimously to bar anyone "present in the United States unlawfully" from enrolling at any of its 12 universities, starting with students entering in fall 2027. Open-admission state colleges are unaffected.
A proposed rule would strip tax-exempt status from up to 18,000 private schools — colleges included — that use race in admissions, scholarships, or aid, even if relabeled as diversity or equity. It would take effect for tax years starting after May 2027.
DOJ argues that donor-funded scholarships reserved for Chinese students can violate Title VI even though the money is private — a theory that could reach the country-restricted scholarships plenty of other colleges also offer.
A new SEVP memo says CPT internships now have to be a required part of every student's curriculum and tied to a formal employer partnership — or a campus risks losing certification to enroll international students at all. UCLA and UC Berkeley have already paused approvals.
A FairTest analysis of 2,247 admissions policies found just 7% of colleges require SAT/ACT scores for 2026-27 — even as elite schools keep reinstating them. Among U.S. News top-100 schools, though, 11% now require scores.
DOJ says GW's medical school used essay responses to flag applicants' race and admitted Black applicants with significantly lower MCAT scores than white and Asian applicants — the fourth medical school found in violation after UCLA and Yale.
Michigan's statewide direct-admissions portal opened August 26 with 20 public and private colleges. Students upload a transcript, skip the essay, and can get admitted before applying — with a September 21 priority deadline for the first round of offers.
Starting in September, 234 colleges — up from 215 last cycle — will proactively offer admission to eligible first-generation and low- and middle-income students through Common App, often before those students have applied.
F-1 visa issuances fell 23% in 2025 versus 2024, with the drop concentrated after Trump paused visa interviews in May for new social media screening. India fell 56.6%; Iran, Myanmar, and Venezuela each fell over 70%.
Fifteen colleges told federal officials the DHS rule capping international student stays at four years is already driving disenrollments — before it even takes effect. Applications fell over 25% at Illinois's flagship, and dozens withdrew from UMB weeks before the semester started.
Nearly 16,000 fewer international students applied through Common App this cycle — the steepest drop in a decade. But the pain wasn't even: elite schools lost almost no international applicants while less-selective colleges lost a fifth of theirs.