<p>There are 2 basic ways of looking at the college admissions process, as I see it. Either:</p>
<p>a. you can truly believe that those who get into top universities 'deserve' it and that the adcoms at the ivys, etc, pick the most "qualified" students and that if you don't get in it's because you were beat out by people who were truly more interesting, more intellectual, more intelligent then yourself,</p>
<p>or b. that it's a crapshoot and that the people who got in were just lucky.</p>
<p>if you fall into category (b) you probably realize that ALL applicants to top universities are incredibly qualified, and by lucky you mean, luckier then everyone else.</p>
<p>i've found that people who fall into the first category generally attend, or want to attend, or think that they will attend tier 1 colleges and that people in category b. have already been through the process and either have or have not gotten in where they want to go.</p>
<p>i think, at this point in my life, i am in the first category. that is of course prone to change with time.</p>
<p>I think that most admissions officers act as if “a” was true. How well they do that is subjective. However, I agree with the part in “b” that many applicants are “qualified”, though calling it a crapshoot is misleading.</p>
<p>You need to accept:
-half of the class has a REAL hook-athlete, URM, legacy, development
-they want kids from 50 states and many countries
-they want representation from different socioeconomic groups
-they have various institutional needs/desires</p>
<p>To build that class with all of that, they can’t accept what most would consider the most qualified. The schools that come closest to doing that are state schools that can’t consider race, can’t favor legacies and don’t have people wanting to give millions. But even those have lots of athletes.</p>
<p>So if you are highly qualified and don’t get in it’s not at all about smarter, more interesting kids in many cases. It can easily be about being from the wrong state or socioeconomic group, going to a school with too many legacies or athletes…it can be just about anything. </p>
<p>What is forgotten is these schools have very little space relative to interest. They just can’t take anyway near the number that are qualified.</p>
<p>I don’t think either accurately represents the process. No, I don’t think the admissions process picks the most “qualified” applicants, if by qualified you mean statistically strong. Nor do businesses always pick the college grad with the highest GPA, or does Broadway pick the most “talented” singers and thespians for their shows. All colleges (and businesses and theaters) have their own priorities. They look for individuals who are qualified or talented *enough<a href=“which,%20for%20top%20schools,%20is%20an%20admittedly%20high%20threshold”>/I</a> and then look to fill institutional needs. This is why we see URMs, athletes, and development cases admitted at higher rates.</p>
<p>In general, I would say everyone admitted to a top school is qualified in some sense. But were they the most qualified in the pool (if “qualified” is even a quantifiable metric)? Probably not. This does not mean admissions is a crapshoot or a lottery. It may be a gamble, but only for those who are already qualified. Plenty of high schoolers simply have no idea how fierce the competition for top schools has become, and consider themselves victims of a system they had little chance at beating from the beginning.</p>
<p>Luckily, admissions officers have become more transparent about the inner workings of admissions since the competition has become so fierce. They will readily admit what I said above. And applicants can use this to their advantage–to “game the system,” in a benign sense. Applicants who aren’t inherently advantaged can work to present themselves in their application as someone with a particular role for the college community. This could be through an arts portfolio, scientific research in astronomy, or a documented history of cancer fundraising. Whatever. Applicants who have devoted their time to becoming good at something will have a lot easier time finding their way inside ivy covered walls.</p>