<p>How does a college sort its received applications? Does it just randomly pick one? Sort it by the name of the highschool? Or..?</p>
<p>Many colleges assign admissions officers by region. So one person reads all the applications from that region. That helps them to get to know the schools and makes it more likely that they have met the applicants in their travels in that region. I think a lot have a second reader as well, not sure how those apps get assigned. </p>
<p>I don’t know how a given admissions officer sorts/decides the order of reading applications. You can assume applications that arrive and are fully completed early probably get the earliest read, as some applications don’t have all the pieces in for several weeks after your deadline for your piece. They wouldn’t wait for all the applications from a given high school to be done, for example. When your app is done, I expect it goes into the queue, and when they get to it in the pile (either paper or electronically), they get to it. There might be some way they sort (maybe known hooks – legacies, recruited athletes, etc.) might be pulled out.</p>
<p>Oh ok. Reason I was asking is because I go to a small school (100 graduating class) and about 10 people are applying to the same colleges as me.</p>