<p>In one particular thread the OP stated that her top-choice college specifically told her that the reason why she got accepted was because she portrayed her true personality well. Given that this sounds like a fairly common compliment, do you find out why you got accepted?</p>
<p>Most schools send out the generic acceptance letter that is identical for every admitted student. Some schools also send out personalized notes, but I’d guess it’s not that common. It really depends on the school. Mine had the regular acceptance letter with a note from the adcom in charge of my area handwritten on the back.</p>
<p>In most cases, no - you just get the acceptance letter. In a few cases, the letter may include a personal note from an adcom complimenting the student on some aspect of their essays or some mention of an unusual EC might be made. Don’t read too much into that. The positive way of viewing it was that the adcom was being nice by mentioning something that really stood out in the application. The cynical way of reading it is that it’s a marketing ploy-students feel good when someone notices them and they might be more likely to accept the offer of admission.</p>
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<p>^ That’s why its done. If you get a personal note like that you’ll find that all (or virtually all) of your classmates accepted at that school got similar hand written comments.</p>
<p>I’ve always wished that I could know what I could’ve done to be accepted at certain places, and why I was accepted to where I was.</p>
<p>In some cases, it’s easy - grades, test scores, class rank, etc…didn’t make the cut. But assuming you passed the obvious hurdles, I suspect the answer is that there isn’t a reason in many cases. Your application either did or did not ‘hit the spot’ at that particular moment, depending on those apps that went before, how full the class already was with kids ‘like you,’ or the fact that that particular admissions officer did or did not identify with or connect with you in some way. </p>
<p>Given that this is more than likely the case for most of your schools, the ‘why’ would be of no value to you. It’s not like next time you could try to get your application read before the one from the future Nobel Laureate. Nor could you find out what that particular admission officer’s personal quirks and preferences are. Just assume that it wasn’t personal - most rejection isn’t.</p>
<p>The only personalized note my son got was from Lafayette. It was very nice, but not as nice as the more “boring” letters he got from other schools that came with decent merit award notifications ;-)</p>
<p>Gtown sends out personalized notes, mine mentioned like my Eagle Scout status as impressing them, but honestly they dont, Gtown will never tell you the real reasons (we needed more URM’s, we needed a kid from Alaska, etc.) unless your essay gets picked to be read to the entire Freshman class, in which case your essay probably had a good deal to do with it.</p>
<p>Many colleges admit all or a portion of the students using a formula based on academic stats (GPA, rank, and/or test scores). At such colleges, it should be easy to tell why you were admitted (your stats exceeded the threshold).</p>
<p>Then again, you should be able to tell easily why you were admitted to an open admission community college.</p>