<p>ok so i have been wondering for awhile now..</p>
<p>colleges aim to have like a well-rounded class, blah blah. but if they go through the apps one by one, admitting and rejecting, what happens when near the end they uncover lots of more applicants they want. will they go back and reject some they already put in the admit pile? or will they unintentionaly be tougher on those last ones if they already have the range of admittied kids they want? do you guys know what I mean?</p>
<p>also, how exactly do they go in order? randomly, alphabetically, what?</p>
<p>I know, none of this is really important, i'm just curious ;)</p>
<p>Part of it depends on what kind of admissions they have -- ea, ed, regular, rolling. For rolling, it obviously depends on when you send your app in. In any case, it's probably more advantageous to send it in as soon as possible, because I imagine they look at them on a first come, first serve basis. Might be wrong, though.</p>
<p>Hmm... I don't really know. I guess people would get waitlisted. I don't really know what colleges do but if they start looking at RD apps on the deadline (maybe they were finishing up with ED lol I don't know I'm just making stuff up XD) they'll pretty much have all the applications. They'd be able to see there's more applicants than usual and then they'd get choosier since they would have more outstanding students (hopefully XD) and more people would be waitlisted/rejected. That's all conjecture, of course. <em>shrug</em> It kind of depends on when they start looking at apps, I suppose.</p>
<p>There was an admissions video around here..basically when reading applications (i guess random order) they either had clear admit, clear reject, and some who were left to the end, to be read again (not the actual waitlist...just a temporary waitlist). So by the time they restart reading those apps they already know (in large) what the general level is like. This will make selecting from what is called the "gray area" a bit more knowledgeable.
Of course this can't be perfect, there is always a big amount of randomness in the process.
Who knows, maybe even bigger schools have several levels like these. Say 5 levels of selection. This would be even more precise.</p>
<p>bigger schools have people that go through them initially, weeding out those who just will not make it what so ever (such as a non-URM white male good income no legacy 2.8 1200 SAT average ECs and ok essays to NYU) and although you may say "well they dont know until theyve gone through them all", but lets get real, they know who and who will not be competative. this process cuts the applications by atleast a third, if not half...if they even have a slight chance, they go on to another higher-level person, who reads into the essays more and will write down pros/cons about that person...then it goes to a higher level where an adcom (3-4 people usually) read through each and try to decide..if they think they still have good stats, but still not sure, they put them aside to come back to them, but if they are a stellar kid, then they add them to the accept pile...then they come back to those "maybes" and fill in leftover admission spots</p>
<p>this is how most schools do it, but obviously, there will be little tweaks here and there depending on the college/how many applicants/prestige of college/ect</p>