<p>I mean, there are thousands of threads here about unraveling the admissions process. But the way I see it, it's basically common sense. I mean, if I were interviewing someone for a job, I'd take a hard look at their credentials, but ultimately I'd make a gut decision based on the impression they gave me. That's the same way colleges do it.</p>
<p>I agree with this, on a broad level/basically.</p>
<p>The problem is that IMO 90% of the people don’t get this (common sense)…Lol, keep saying stuff like “Omg I got 1 B+ I’m screwed for life)”.</p>
<p>No, college admissions aren’t necessarily common sense. A lot of decisions are highly questionable, for whatever reason. This is more true at the very top schools. For those schools, it is considered a “crapshoot.” What this basically means is that if you applied last year, your decision may be entirely different. Or, if the adcoms decided to start over at some point, you’d have a significantly different chance to get in.</p>
<p>This doesn’t make complete sense until you read some of the stories adcoms admit to. Like there was one who had terrible buffalo wings the prior night, so she rejected some people from Buffalo the next day just because of the food. And each adcom has their own personal preferences. Some may put more emphasis on test scores, others may place ECs higher than normal, etc.</p>