“Do we really need AOs to be salespersons for their colleges?”
They don’t need to be salespeople, but they need to be engaging and have good communication skills, and most of them actually do, this thread is kind of the exceptions to the rule (adcoms are good representatives of their school). And at most colleges the AOs have to be a little sales-oriented, it’s easy to talk about the Harvards of the world with 80% yield, but the colleges below 30% or 40%.
“Fleeting impressions unfortunately can feature highly”
Kids making decisions based on emotion, that never happens! seriously, the research on the teenager brain shows that emotions and peers are the driving things right now, until like 25 when the more rational part of the brain takes over, I mentioned this in another thread. So if a kid is not feeling a school, then that’s it, they’re not applying, or they’re applying for the sake of others (parents, GCs). The only thing that could get someone to apply would be affordability, as that trumps everything, including potential fit. Or get their friends to suggest applying. 