For some reason in the past few years there has been a lot of interest in Boise State.
Cost, weather, and jobs are the biggest factors. I’ll add Belmont in Nashville to the list.
Completely agree about South Carolina. I’m an alum from many years ago. Good business school, nice campus, great weather, medium sized city with things to do, near Atlanta and the beach at an affordable price. Surprised it took this long. I’m waiting for NC State to take off too.
Funny about Pittsburgh. I did my undergrad there and live in Pittsburgh now. Son applied as a parents choice option. Does not want HS 2.0. He’s talking to all the other high stat kids at his school. Surprisingly to him Pitt is first on their list. Especially engineering and pre-med types. He’s baffled. I laugh and tell remind him that Pitt is an excellent school with many nice options. He might come around.
Re: Boise State = Blue football field makes a strong impression on TV.
Self reminder: Do not apply to these “hot” colleges to avoid overheated competition 
At my school, Cornell. Millions of kids EDed
Although Haverford College has always been a top school, it seems to be brought up more often recently than ever before, possibly because of its ideal location, high stats, and increased competition for admission.
Wash U
There are likely more schools that are more ‘hot’ than WashU. No bias from my side since I have a kid at WashU.
I have a feeling that in the next few years, UT-Dallas will be ranked higher than UC schools not named Berkeley and UCLA.
Heard quite a few families talking about St. Andrews, which I believe has about 20% American undergraduates.
@hapworth Yep. lol Texans are all about staying in Texas. As in Friday Night Lights … “Texas forever.” It makes for a chill senior year for students with no stressing out about private colleges or out of state schools. Some kids do leave, but there’s no rat race here to do so.
Uh oh. The first four and on my daughter’s list of 7 (though CoC is hanging by a thread since she has decided she’d rather have a traditional campus), and she thought, aside from Clemson, that she was being pretty exotic!
Where’s “here” @roycroftmom? I’m in Chicago suburbs.
I would worry first about “catching” Texas A&M (#103) before tackling the UCs. UTD is #240. They have a long, long way to go…
@Socaldad2002, UT Dallas has a hefty endowment that dwarfs that of many UCs and provides lots of full ride scholarships, in a state with a young and growing college age population effectively closed out of the state flagship, many of whom want to remain in Texas. I am quite certain its future is very bright.
“I am quite certain its future is very bright.”
No doubt, but “lots of full ride scholarships” won’t help UTD pass the UCs in the rankings, especially now the methodology is being increasingly tilted to favor need based aid and educating Pell grant recipients, both areas where the UCs excel.
Those full ride scholarships are a great option for wealthier parents who can’t afford their EFC and I’m certainly a fan of that choice being available, but USNWR are effectively trying to discourage colleges from relying on them to boost their rankings, hence Alabama’s recent ranking declines. So it wouldn’t surprise me if UTD suffers the same fate as Alabama.
Tulane has been a “hot” school for Jewish kids for many years (my second cousin who graduated calls it “Jewlane”). It got on others’ radar with massive merit and free apps. (Tulane is moving more toward need-based merit). Looking at the thread this year, lots of kids with top stats, even those with demonstrated interest) who applied EA were deferred and they’re being pushed to apply ED2.
Case Western for tech kids. They give great merit too, but the same thing happening at Tulane for EA is happening at Case. Crazy deferrals for kids thinking it was a safety and others for whom it was 1st choice (with visits/interviews).
Trinity University in Texas. Apps went way up last year.
GW is hot for political science kids rejected from their ED schools (who go there with merit).
Pretty much all state public’s are hot, and will get hotter as cost of attendance at privates exceeds $75 to 80k (or more, soon).
WVU and South Carolina are all hot in the mid-Atlantic area near us now.
Pitt passed PSU a few cycles ago for the go-to school but now UMD and Delaware are replacing Pitt.
A dozen years ago it was JMU and William and Mary but now we don’t hear about either school. Clemson and Wake Forest seem to be the replacements.
New York schools such as Syracuse, Hofstra, and Ithaca used to be hot but are no longer. Many kids leaving the state are headed south and to big schools (UGA, Auburn, UofSC, UNC, NC State, WVU, Alabama, etc…). Not many LAC.
Most of the top kids (top 2-5%) did not apply to lottery schools this year. They did not apply ED either.
@bamamom2021 so different than here. Almost all top kids went ED to the usual suspects this year with good results - Duke, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Wash U, Cornell. Kids here not bothering with Ivies unless they are athletes or legacies.
I do see more kids in the middle of the pack choosing Boulder, Clemson, Alabama as a chance to get out of the Midwest. USCarolina hasn’t taken off yet. Just 1/750 went there last year.
Large, affluent, highly ranked CT public school: Trend is definitely kids wanting to go south: Vandy is popular with the high stats kids; Wake Forest next step down; Clemson seems to have replaced Elon - that was popular here 5-10 years ago but doesn’t seem so much any more. And Tulane - very, very popular.