I agree, there may not be a calculation, but AOs know if you’ve tried to show interest through the “very many options” available to do so. College fairs, school visits, live-streaming admissions events, email, in HS college visits, local recruiting events… For both my kids, we personally ran into our AO and they new each of my kids pretty well by the time we were personally introduced at a local recruiting event. Maybe it isn’t calculated, but I’m sure the bias of knowing the kid helps you read an essay in a more positive (or maybe negative) light.
Side point to the discussion, as it relates to WUSTL: for the coming year, they will be adding a supplemental essay (which will bring their applicant numbers down somewhat, as the act of applying will require more effort than it now does) and will add an option for ED2 (which will probably reverse the applicant loss from the supplemental essay)
“MIT explicitly says that EA there does not give and admission advantage. … Princeton and Notre Dame consider level of applicant’s interest. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Caltech, MIT, UCB, UCLA, USC, and BC do not, according to collegedata.com or common data sets.”
Regardless of whether these schools say that they consider the “level of applicant’s interest” or these schools do, in fact, consider such interest in their secret sauce evaluations, it seems reasonable to infer that an EA/ED/early application for merit scholarship consideration is one way for applicants to convey a level of interest to Adcoms. As others have stated above, if an Adcom personally knows an applicant, it also seems reasonable to infer that such personal knowledge might influence a close call decision.
Not to steer this thread off course, but with the exception of MIT and Caltech, all of the other schools fill a portion of their freshman class seats with athletes. For the schools with prominent athletic programs (UCB, UCLA, USC, Stanford, ND and BC), expressing a level of interest is an essential part of gaining a freshman seat – either as a recruited scholarship athlete or a preferred walk on athlete – well before Letters of Intent are signed each year (and typically before the Admissions Offices make their decisions for filling all of their freshman class seats). In fact, at USC, some athletes enroll during the Spring semester of their high school senior year (the ultimate expression of level of interest) to participate in Spring football.
The recruited athlete admissions pathway does not necessarily use the same admission process and criteria as the general admission pathway that most applicants go through.
“The recruited athlete admissions pathway does not necessarily use the same admission process and criteria as the general admission pathway that most applicants go through.”
Agreed.
But even applicants with an athletic hook (scholarship recruits and walk on recruits) must convey a level of interest to gain a seat in the freshman class. If they do not, the recruiters move on and the opportunity is lost.
This does not mean that level of applicant’s interest is considered for applicants other than recruited athletes.
This discussion makes no sense to me. This is stuff my kids figured out in kindergarten – along the lines of “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.”
Again – colleges have to manage yield. When they don’t, it creates serious problems --more so on the over-admit side of the equation than on the under-admit side. It’s like when airlines overbook flights, except that there is usually not the option of offering a bunch of admitted students a few hundred dollars and a seat on the next flight out.
The very top colleges like Harvard & Yale are managing yield – they just have such high yield that “demonstrated interest” isn’t a useful metric for them. Instead, they simply manage their yield by holding down the numbers of students they accept – and by offering such generous need-based aid so as to minimize the likelihood of being turned down for financial reasons. So Harvard accepts maybe 2000 students to fill 1700 spots. When there’s an 85% yield that’s an option.
And then of course on the opposite end of the spectrum there are colleges that never get filled to capacity and don’t have to worry.
There are other ways to help manage yield — rolling admissions, ED schemes, merit money, early write admissions and preferential scholarship deadlines, etc. – but in the end, yield needs to be managed, and the universal May 1st enrollment deadline creates a significant hurdle for colleges to overcome to get to that point.
Bottom line: every college needs a way to assess how many spots it needs to offer, and which students it needs to offer them to, in order to end up with the correct number and distribution of entering students the following year. That is the primary JOB of the admissions department --to make that happen.
The value of using “demonstrated interest” as a metric is that in the end it is a win-win situation for college and applicant. It gives students who strongly want to attend a given college a potential leg up in recognition of their commitment, and it particularly helps the college with meeting other enrollment targets – such as the requisite balance of STEM vs. humanities students, and other admissions priorities that require fine-tuning.
I agree colleges have to manage yields in some way or fashion. However, trying to discern “interest” in applicants disadvantages those who may not have the means, the awareness, or other resources to demonstrate their interests. Limiting the number of applications per applicant is perhaps a better mechanism. It will force applicants to apply mostly to colleges that are better matches for them, rather than wasting precious slots on far reaches.
“I agree colleges have to manage yields in some way or fashion. However, trying to discern “interest” in applicants disadvantages those who may not have the means, the awareness, or other resources to demonstrate their interests. Limiting the number of applications per applicant is perhaps a better mechanism.”
Limiting the number of applications per applicant would help, but individual colleges do not have the unilateral power to make that happen even if they were to agree that’s a good approach. Colleges can only use the tools they possess.
I agree the concept of “demonstrated interest” greatly disadvantages applicants with financial constraints or who are unaware of the need. Both DH and I are college educated and earn enough that our kids are full pay at college, but until I started reading here we were unaware “demonstrated interest” was a thing. Heck, on our first few college tours I was miffed at my son when he signed in because giving them his personal info just seemed another mechanism for colleges to sign him up for yet more junk mail. It’s easy to understand how many applicants might not know or even if they did know, might not have financial means to demonstrate interest by visiting.
"I fact, at USC, some athletes enroll during the Spring semester of their high school senior year (the ultimate expression of level of interest) to participate in Spring football.
@555State
where is your proof that HS students are participating in USC Spring football?
Everyone I see on the roster for Spring 2018 football is a currently enrolled USC student.
It may be hard to figure out how to demonstrate interest if visiting is cost prohibitive, or too far, or whatever.
But the corollary is NOT true- it is extremely easy for kids to demonstrate a lack of interest to colleges.
Brown does not have a nursing school. (Yale does). Princeton does not have a law school (Harvard does). etc. Recycling your U Penn Nursing application (a program which accepts undergrads) to use for Yale is a quick way to show you have NO interest in Yale since you didn’t bother to read the website to learn about Yale’s grad level degree programs.
I’ve interviewed students for Brown who mentioned “famous professors” they want to study with who happen to work at U Chicago, or interdisciplinary programs that exist at JHU but not Brown, etc.
It might be hard to show interest- but it’s plenty easy to demonstrate the lack thereof. Read the website for starters? Don’t ask your interviewer “is there a combined MBA/JD program” when the college you are interviewing at does not have a law school. That’s sort of basic.
I think colleges understand the financial constraints for kids who can’t travel for visits. But there are other ways to demonstrate interest as well as fit. Most of these elite schools will have local events. At the very least, kids can contact the admissions department expressing interest in finding local events or interviewing with an alumni if that is offered. Unlike WUSTL, most of these schools have supplemental essays where kids can demonstrate why they think the school is a good fit. As @blossom said, the kids really need to make sure they get it right.
@menloparkmom early enrollees in time for spring football is common at all Div 1 football schools nowadays. Obviously that means that kids need to graduate from HS in 3.5 years instead of 4.
https://reignoftroy.com/2017/12/20/usc-football-signed-recruits-early-enroll-2018/amp/1/
If they have the means and resources to apply they have the means to demonstrate interest.
It does not cost money to send an email.
It does not cost money show up when the admissions rep from a college visits a high school.
It does not cost money to sign up for an interview with a local alumnus.
Again -“demonstrate interest” does NOT mean “visit campus”.
There are dozens of ways for a student to demonstrate interest to a college, one of which may be visiting the campus. That does not follow that it is the only way or a required way.
And no I don’t believe that students are being “disadvantaged” because of their “lack of awareness”. I think that the students who are seriously interested in a particular college are doing all sorts of things to demonstrate interest without being aware that it has any impact at all on admissions chances. Logging into the student portal on a regular basis is a potential indication of level of interest.
I think the people complaining about consideration of that factor are those who really do have their sights on other colleges, and operating on the false assumption that they can use a highly selective college as a “safety” when the student is aiming for colleges that are even more selective… and then feeling irked that they are expected to go through the motions of pretending to care about WUSTL when they really are hoping to get into Princeton or Brown.
Let them eat cake!
College reps do not visit every town, much less every school. As an example, four of the Ivys didn’t come to our town and the closest event they hosted was over an hour’s drive away.
Yes, there are other ways to demonstrate interest, but it’s important to remember how many students live in areas or go to schools that are not visited by all the colleges. Those same areas may or may not have local alums available for interviews. Even logging into an admissions portal may be a lot more difficult for students who don’t have their own computer much less home internet access. Yes, you can get access at the library, but having to go to the library to do that means it’s much more difficult to log in to the portal frequently.
Brushing off concerns about disadvantaged students not having the same mechanisms and ability to show interest shows a lack of understanding of the real issues many students face outside the CC bubble.
Also, the applicant who is aware of the need to show additional interest may demonstrate more interest to his/her 10th choice (because s/he knows that s/he needs to play that game) than the unaware applicant may to his/her first choice.
A college that wants applicants with a high level of interest can add extra essays (particularly the “why this college?” essay), or have only its own application (rather than any of the shared Common/Universal/Coalition applications). That is a more direct and transparent way of getting a higher level of interest than using the hidden level of interest indicators that can be gamed by those in the know, and missed by interested applicants who do not know that they have to show more interest beyond applying.
“Restricted EA = ED, yeah, yeah, yeah I know there are easier ways to get out of it, but for the purposes of showing interest they are exactly the same for those schools that use it.”
They’re not equivalent at all, one is binding where you have to withdraw all your applications if accepted and can only get out if FA isn’t good. The other is not binding at all, you can continue applying EA to public universities and go through RD, make a more informed decision wrt where you want to attend and compare FA. There’s nothing to get out of with SCEA. They’re both similar in indicating interest, if that was your point.
@menloparkmom I will chime in. There were 2 kids from a local high school where I live that “graduated” by December of their senior year and then enrolled in USC in January (Spring Semester) to start training and practicing/playing with the football team. The kids came back to walk the formal HS graduation in June, but started USC in the Spring of their senior year to get a jump on things. If I know of 2 at a local high school, I am sure the poster that you question (was it @555State ?) is refering to this???
If you click on the ‘F’ for freshmen, you will find a few.
1.Hufanga, who enrolled at USC in the spring of 2018 after graduating a semester early from high school, will look to get into the rotation at safety as a first-year freshman in 2018.
- Williams, who enrolled at USC in the spring of 2018 after graduating a semester early from high school, will look to get into the rotation at cornerback as a first-year freshman in 2018.
3.Mauga, who enrolled at USC in the spring of 2018 after graduating a semester early from high school, will look to get into the rotation at outside linebacker as a first-year freshman in 2018.
4.Scott, who enrolled at USC in the spring of 2018 after graduating a semester early from high school, will look to get into the rotation at inside linebacker as a first-year freshman in 2018.
- Dedich, who enrolled at USC in the spring of 2018 after graduating a semester early from high school, will look to get into the mix at center as a first-year freshman in 2018.
But really, athletes only have to show interest to the coach.
We recently attended a local college road show and the Bowdoin Dean of Admissions told the students that interviews with the admissions office are not “mandatory” but really help them know you…and, if they can put a name with a face when those apps come in, it’s to your advantage. She said that, given two similar candidates, the one they’ve met would be more likely to be admitted. It’s not a rule but it just makes sense. Wouldn’t you choose the person you’ve met and you know better? The one who has told you face to face why they love your school?
I know that many schools do not offer interviews with admissions but, for those that do, it seems like that makes a lot of sense. I’ve heard that interviews with alums are less important since that alum is not making decisions for the school. Doing an alumni interview does show that the student is interested but it’s not as effective in giving a bump in admissions.
S19 won’t apply ED anywhere. He just won’t be ready to pull the trigger that early. He’s still considering different majors and is still visiting schools. We know it’s a disadvantage. If he had an absolute favorite by a large margin, then he would apply ED but that’s not how kids are using ED now. They are choosing the school on their list where ED gives them the best advantage. A friend of ours went to our guidance office and said that her daughter had three schools that were at the top of her list. She was told that she was most likely to get in ED to the third one on that list. So, that’s where she applied, even though she liked the top two schools on her list a little better. She got in and is attending but she’s still thinking about those other two schools. Even though her matriculation helped this school’s yield, she’s not necessarily the enthusiastic student they think they are getting in ED.