Admissions

Like many colleges, Penn has undergrads help woo admitted students with similar interests or ethnic backgrounds. Now the university is recruiting based on sexual orientation too.

New service pairs community college students who wish to continue their education with interested four-year institutions.

Sensing opportunity, more private institutions court community college transfer students.

The controversial "reputational" portion of U.S. News rankings appears more related to past rankings than to actual shifts in colleges' quality, study finds.

Guaranteed transfer program has more than 35,000 community college students in line to enroll at U. of Central Florida; program seen as alternative to two-year colleges' offering their own bachelor's degrees.

Public college systems in Maryland, Kentucky and New York increase admissions requirements or placement thresholds for credit-bearing courses in mathematics, a subject in which many entering college students are ill prepared.

Key test for graduate admissions will lose antonyms and analogies, replace some geometry with data analysis, alter scoring, and let test takers move among questions. ETS calls shifts significant; critics see cosmetic changes.

While everyone obsesses over the Ivies and Berkeley, Cal State -- the largest university system in the United States -- moves from being non-competitive to competitive on who gets in.