<p>There are 2-3 rounds for holistic admissions. First cut is first reader, quickly decided (5-10mn read on average): this student doesn’t meet our standards. If you make the first cut, your odds are better than average, so for a school where your RD odds are roughly 1 in 15 to 1 in 20, your odds increase to 1 in 10. If you applied ED and your odds were 1 in 4 or 5, your odds move to 1 in 3 or so. Etc… Then come the discussions, where all candidates are qualified: highly selective colleges might have three times the number of highly qualified applicants than they can admit at the end of this round which would require another one - at this point, the goal is to craft a class, so between three bassoon players only one will be picked even if there’s a special need for a bassoon player, and that one candidate will be judged in relation to other players, but may also be judged on the basis of being a potential club cricket member or useful for the russian major so in the end two bassoon players may get in and zero bass players; and finally the last round is for the hotly disputed last spots, with each admission officer defending a couple applicants that struck them as especially interesting for the class. In the end, the Dean of Admission may break ties (and of course overseeing and jumping in at any point, it’s not like s/he’s twiddling his/her thumbs :p.)</p>