I was looking through the CDS reports of Haverford and Colby, and they classify “Character/personal qualities” as “Very Important” and “Talent/ability” as “Important.” In contrast, UC Berkeley says that Talent/Ability is “Not Considered.” These metrics are so subjective that I can’t help but wonder how colleges will glean them from 2-3 essays and a transcript. If they’re so important, for instance, how is the Interview only “Considered” at Colby when that’s perhaps the best way to infer an applicant’s personal qualities? And how is the “Applicant Interest” “Not Considered” at Vassar even while “Character/personal qualities” is “Important?” The whole thing seems to me like a way for colleges to justify rejecting qualified applicants as a consequence of growing application numbers. Can someone tell me how colleges are even able to justify these preferences without adequate data about or contact with the applicant?
Why would you think these factors wouldn’t be apparent from essays and letters of rec? Aren’t they pretty much exactly what the essays and letters of rec are intended to showcase for holistic colleges, given that grades are on the transcript?
I guess. But the level of importance given to them doesn’t seem consistent with the volume of data received by the college. There are separate “Essays” and Recommendations" categories, which I think do deserve to be “Important” – after all, the essay is being judged on its own merits, and the letters are fairly straightforward. But even if colleges employed the very best explicators in the world, they wouldn’t be able to infer enough about more than a few facets of an applicant’s character from an essay – let alone enough to give the personal qualities such weight.
Choosing applicants for admission is not completely like Track & Field. It includes some Book Of The Year.
In Track & Field, it is all about the hard metrics. How fast? How far? How high? Some people focus only on the stats of applicants and expect colleges to look only at GPA and test scores.
The Book Of The Year is certainly about having the technical ability to craft a well-written novel according to grammar, word count, and plot, but it is a lot more than that. Some people hope colleges lean wayyyyyyy into the holistic process and accept students solely based on “fit”.
The truth is, it’s more like Gymnastics or Ice Skating. There are certain hard metrics to attain, but there is also a good deal of personality, performance art, and Je ne sais quoi that helps separate competitors who are similarly technically proficient.
Sometimes, that means it may be hard for the losers to accept why they lost, or even understand why. A no for Colby might be a yes for UCB and a deferral for Haverford. Sometimes there is no one “why”. Sometimes, this year’s “no” might be next year’s “yes”.
The bigger problem in my eyes, is why some applicants decide that one school, and only that one school, is where they could possibly find success and happiness. Embrace the possibilities and accept that there is no one true school.
The CDS may not be completely correct especially in UCB’s case or the other UC’s.
UC’s use 14 areas of criteria for their application review:
Here is one area listed:
This is the link: https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/how-to-apply/applying-as-a-freshman/how-applications-are-reviewed.html
@Gumbymom this is interesting. Perhaps they fit them all in the category of “Extracurriculars” and ignored the “Talents/abilities” category?
@EconPop I see what you’re saying. However, this implies that an applicant should tailor themselves to fit a college’s cultural niche. This falls into the category of demonstrated interest, which Vassar claims not to even consider. And let’s be real – the selection criteria are nowhere near as justifiable as you make them out to be. I think it’s possible that “will this applicant’s personality be a good fit for our college?” is code for “do I like this applicant?”. Isn’t the “je ne sais quoi” actually just that, because no one knows what it is?
No. It implies the applicant should do more reflection on him/herself and on many colleges’ cultures, and decide which colleges better fit what the applicant already has. Don’t change who you are because you decide College X is where you want to go. Choose the college based on who you already are.
Correct. We don’t always successfully pick the right “best” option for ourselves. That’s why every year students transfer. Because they discover they aren’t really happy at their first choice, be it Harvard or SW Tech. This happens sometimes when applicants choose colleges solely because of rankings (prestige) instead of doing the hard work of figuring out which colleges fit that student best.
And correct, we don’t really know what each school is looking for, what each Director of Admissions is looking for, what each individual Admission Officer is looking for. And really, it’s that last level that might sometimes matter most, because when there is doubt, it will be a single AO who flags and promotes your application above the other 200 she’s read that week. We can’t always know exactly what is in her head. But we can try to figure out the overall culture of a school. We can determine that maybe Haverford is different than UCB, maybe Tulane really is different than Case Western.
I want to back up to this. Justifiable to whom? Maybe justify wasn’t the word you wanted to use there.
Clearly the colleges disagree, as that is the main point of the essay - info session after info session said “use the essay to tell us who you are”.
Vassar, to use one of your examples, specifically says it looks at essays and recs for these traits “We also consider personal strengths, motivation, and potential as evidenced in essays, recommendations, and out-of-class involvements”. https://www.vassar.edu/admissions/apply/
As for demonstrated interest, fit etc - that is (or should be) encapsulated in the “why us” essay.
Agree entirely with econpop that if you feel that you need to “tailor” yourself to fit the college, you’re doing this the wrong way round. Start with what you are and what you want in a college, and then find the colleges that fit you. If you follow that approach, the essay explaining your fit comes naturally.
Colleges admit the applicants they want the most, without justifying their methods of choosing.
vonlost, that was very well put! I guess I was assuming that colleges’ standards are more predictable than they actually are.
And thanks @SJ2727 for the advice. I’ll continue my search, but now with an eye toward fit. I’ve also gleaned that my essay should show my personality more so than any concrete facts. This was helpful!