i believe i saw a similar post quite a while back but i couldn’t find it.
i do believe that there probably is a couple of adcom people or people that just work in admission offices lurking around here? if you are out there do you find yourself reading posts and say “wow the majority of students could not have it more wrong” about a specific topic? if yes what ussualy are the topics people tend to be wrong about.
i feel that this will get maybe one or two responses.
<p>i'd like to know as well. sometimes i tend to think we actually know nothing about the actual process.</p>
<p>The four "behind the scenes" books on adcoms are "The Gatekeepers" by Steinberg, "Harvard Schmarvard" by Mathews, "A is for Admissions" by Hernandez, and "Admissions Confidential" by Toors.</p>
<p>Steinberg is a Wash Post writer who was allowed to observe the adcom process at Wellesley. It is respectful of adcom members.</p>
<p>Mathews is also a Wash Post writer. He is a Harvard grad, but is critical of the brand-name consciousness that is driving so many high school students towards such a small number of colleges. </p>
<p>Hernandez was asst. director of admissions at Dartmouth in the early 1990's. She is an Ivy graduate and thinks a lot of the Ivies. She believes that everyone who deserves to get into an Ivy makes it. The book was published in 1997 and is dated in several ways. Her newer book is very good, "Acing the College Application".</p>
<p>Toors was an adcom member at Duke, and she is the most cynical of the bunch. Steinberg is respectful of the process but objective. Mathews thinks the process is misdirected but respects the job the adcoms do. Hernandez thinks the process has few flaws. Toors is more likely to talk about how adcom members encourage people to apply in order to keep the college's selectivity high even when they know the people will never be accepted. She also is very frank about how decisions are made and the randomness of the process.</p>
<p>Michele Hernandez has posted a few times in the Parents Forum, but I haven't seen any recently. An MIT adcom has posted in that forum, but he and another adcom have blogs open for questions.</p>
<p>Golub posts every now and then in the Caltech forum</p>