Does university contact HS when doing difficult decision-making? If so, can you explain? Thanks for sharing.
Yes, AOs will sometimes contact an applicant’s GC if they have questions that need clarification. The reasons for clarification can run the gamut from how the applicant compares to other students in the HS, get mid-semester or quarter grades, ask about something the applicant, a teacher, or the GC wrote in application materials, or anything else one might imagine.
I don’t know how often this happens, I expect some schools do it more than others, and AOs that have a relationship with a particular GC/HS probably make use of that relatively more as well.
My S applied early decision to a top LAC. They contacted his guidance counselor and requested mid-semester grades, especially since he wouldn’t have his fall semester grades available before their decision. His guidance counselor told him about the request.
I agree you said “…how the applicant compares to other students in the HS…” It seems the most case if more than one students have applied to the same university but the university offers only one spot.
Universities tend to not have quotas, or caps, on the number of students they will accept from a given HS.
Most of universities want to build diversity. They prefer students from everywhere.
Although that is true, what I said it true as well.
What exactly are you asking? In most cases, colleges do NOT contact the high schools when making admissions decisions. They expect that the student will have provided them with all the info needed.
If a student is hoping to get off of a waitlist, it’s sometimes helpful for the school counselor to contact the school usually to provide any updates achievements and to express the students high interest in the college.
I suppose a college could contact a school if there was conflicting information and they wanted a clarification…I have never heard if that happening.
Most college adcoms don’t have the time to call High Schools to inquire about applicants. The expectation is that the adcoms will see what they need to know to make those “difficult decisions” by looking at the college application the student has submitted.
@compiler why are you asking this now?
Generally, having two (or even three or four) students rather than one from a particular school is not going to have much impact on freshman class diversity, especially if the students in question are not twins. Diversity is about much more than which high school you went to.
Yes. I’ve known it to happen. I have never heard of the purpose of such call to decide between or among a number of applicants from that same high school, however.
Sometimes there are questions that can easily be answered by a GC that could make the difference between admittance or not.
At some schools, with some GCs, there are long standing relationships between the GCs and AOs. There could be more discussion about a student. The conversation can be initiated by the GC too
My one son’s GC did get several calls from AOs and it was surprising to me, as one of them was from a large OOS university where I would not have expected that kind of attention. His GC informed him of the calls.