<p>In terms of who reads the application, I know at colleges somewhat less selective, they definitely read. Last night, d received a phone call from a college where the admission officer told her she was just admitted. Then he talked to her about her essay, which she was confused by since she wrote only a very small essay that didn’t address the topics he was discussing. Apparently he got confused and was talking about the counselor letter we wrote. Anyway, she will have plenty of good schools to choose from and will survive any rejections.</p>
<p>My understanding is that in situations where the college gets huge numbers of apps, there are pre-readers. Applicants that are so under-qualified that they are separated. perhaps these don’t benefit from a thorough reading. Don’t forget, there are kids who apply to many of the top schools on a “what if?” basis. I think a lot depends on the given day, hour etc. that the counselor is assessing an application. They are human, after all.</p>
<p>I have been wondering, though, now that everything is electronic, how do adcoms review the files. do they see them on a screen or are they carrying around files, as in the past?</p>
<p>^^and I wouldn’t assume that it is only the “top” schools that have pre-readers; I imagine that any school that receives upwards of 20,000 apps (pulling that number out of the air) has pre-readers…internally or outsourced…</p>
<p>"They left out the little detail about 50,000 applications. That would be 500 applications and essays per adcom. I don’t think so. "</p>
<p>Why not? </p>
<p>Although it takes our kids a long time to put their application together, most can be read in 1/2 hour. The scores, transcript and GPA are a quick read by an experienced admissions officer … so 5 minutes for that. EC’s and other application info…another 5 to 10 minutes. 5 minutes for a couple of recommendations. Then they can spend 15 minutes on the essay. Lastly, the application goes into piles: outright rejection, passed on for further review, or held for later consideration.</p>
<p>So…in an 8 hour day, 16 apps can be reviewed. It would take about a month (31.25 days) for 500 apps to be reviewed. The application season runs from about October to March…so…there should be no problem with each application getting a good review…of even more than 1/2 hour!</p>
<p>15 minutes on a 500 word essay?</p>
<p>Probably not…</p>
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<p>Really, That seems like way too much time. Some of the lengthier posts on this message board are well over 500 words and none of them take me 15 minutes to read. Maybe a couple minutes, if I stretch it.</p>
<p>I’d say longer and/or multiple essays could be read in that time, especially by someone used to reading those things.</p>
<p>So 2boys is being conservative in estimating how long it takes to review one ap.</p>
<p>They must have robo-reader in the adcom, just like the robo-signer in the mortgage foreclosures. Hmmm, I smell fraud here … :eek:</p>
<p>I think it’s normal to spend 15-20 minutes on each application. That’s average – some take much shorter and some take much longer. I would imagine that they spend more time on the recommendations than the essays. Schools do have prereaders. And many schools have at least two admissions officers read each application.</p>
<p>Agree I’ve always guessed 15-20 minutes per application.</p>
<p>I can read a 500 word essay in two minutes. I’d guess 10-15 minutes for a first run through of applications.</p>
<p>Militarymom: Engineering and science depts are working very hard to recruit women. Even if your D’s scores higher on CR, she will get a lot of interest from schools if she does pretty well in math or a science subject matter test (or ACT). They would love to have 50% women, but that does not happen for them. Women who have the ability to succeed in math and science are highly coveted, even if there personal interests lie elsewhere.</p>
<p>This is an old article. Let’s hope that with 19k applications they can still do it this way.</p>
<p>[Newsweek.com:</a> Society: Inside The Admissions Game](<a href=“University of Chicago News”>University of Chicago News)</p>
<p>From the 1999 Newsweek article about admissions at the University of Chicago – this seems time consuming and perhaps unnecessary for applicants clearly not making the cut:</p>
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</p>
<p>Average SAT scores rose from 1370 the previous year to 1420 for the admissions cycle described.</p>
<p>I am always amazed about how these reporters provide these elaborate descriptions of candidates. Is it really possible to do this based on an essay, SAT/GPA and recommendations?</p>
<p>Oh, and to our earlier discussion:</p>
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<p>Oh, yeah. I think that good admissions folks can get a fairly nuanced view of a student.<br>
We heard some pretty specific feedback. No doubt whatsoever that they read the essays and recs.
Also suffice it to say that a lot of committed admissions reps are reading apps well beyond a 9-5 workday this time of year.</p>
<p>Yes. We read it all. I can’t speak for every top school out there, but the top schools I’ve worked for (in admissions) that claim holistic evaluation, do holistic evaluation.</p>
<p>Ask any admissions officer at a highly competitive school about their “lives” in January, February, and March, and they will LAUGH – all we do is eat, sleep, and breathe applications. Many schools (if not most) of this caliber have their A/Os reading full-time from home, minus some pre-assigned time (one day or a few shifts a week) in the office. We’re reading pretty much from the time we wake up in the morning until we go to bed - weekdays, weekends, holidays, you name it. It consumes us.</p>
<p>You’d be surprised though – it’s as easy and quick to read a “clear admit” as it is to read a “clear deny.” It’s the chunk of kids and apps in the middle, who make up the vast majority of the pool anyways, that are the ones that take the most time - parsing out the denies from the waitlists from the admits. In the thick of things I used to be able to get through a “clear” decision file (someone far and away an amazing admit or far and away an absolute deny) in about 10 minutes, sometimes even 5 (the kid with the multiple C’s, D’s, and F’s, rock-bottom testing, and an incomprehensible essay fell into this category). It took me 15-20, even 30 minutes for the vast majority (middle) of files. This does not include the additional necessary prep time right before committee (it’s one thing to read the file, it’s another to have all your notes and “why” prepared to defend your recommended decision to other people). If a file needs more time, we take more time (I’ve spent almost an hour on a file before). If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. But trust us when we say we actually do read every word/page. It may be a fast read, but we do it.</p>