Do you think the way applications are reviewed affect the applicants admission?

College Confidential Community
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<p>After reading the thread about depressed adcoms (<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1724100-do-you-think-that-a-lot-college-admissions-counselors-are-depressed.html#latest"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1724100-do-you-think-that-a-lot-college-admissions-counselors-are-depressed.html#latest&lt;/a&gt;) I got thinking. </p>

<p>Some schools (like Berkely: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/education/edlife/lifting-the-veil-on-the-holistic-process-at-the-university-of-california-berkeley.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/education/edlife/lifting-the-veil-on-the-holistic-process-at-the-university-of-california-berkeley.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0&lt;/a&gt;) view applications in groups and use ranking systems .</p>

<p>Other schools pass the application through a series of individuals.
Local admissions rep reviews the app and can choose whether or not to pass it on to higher individuals (sorry, cannot find a good source).</p>

<p>What would be a reason for a school to do it differently? How does it affect admission?</p>

<p>(and for those of you wondering [you know who you are] this question was asked out of curiosity not paranoia)</p>

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<p>potentially depressed adcoms** ;-)</p>

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<p>I don’t think anyone can answer how it affects admission but it certainly has some impact. Schools don’t change their processes too often so whatever they came up with before it probably what they are using. They all have their strengths and weaknesses in terms of man power required/thoroughness/free of bias etc.</p>

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<p>@Newsie2015 I know MIT doesn’t have local admissions reps; all applications are viewed by a group of adcoms specifically for that purpose. I guess they’re trying to reduce regional bias. </p>

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^except the flip side is it becomes much harder to become familiar with regional nuances. Maybe there are certain awards/programs that don’t have national recognition but if someone from a given region has it on their application its actually a big deal.