<p>Does anyone know how the admissions committee actually goes about making a decision? Do they all sit around a table and sift through all the apps? Or does each member get a pile that they pick their favourites from? Somewhere between the two?</p>
<p>Also, does anyone know who actually makes up the committee? How many members, etc?</p>
<p>Of course, none of this matters to my application, but am curious.</p>
<p>I went to a Yale information session a few weeks ago. The admissions officer that was speaking there said that there’s a regional officer for each area that reviews every application from a number of geographic regions to determine “academic viability”. I gathered that academic viability is basically a check to make sure you have acceptable standardized test scores/didn’t make C’s throughout high school, and little else. From there, I think it goes straight to committee, where some sort of witchcraft happens and they come up with a decision. I know that the regional officer presents a summary of each application in his or her region to the committee and they make a group decision, but other than that, it’s kind of mysterious. :O</p>
<p>thanks fgsfds. that’s as solid an answer to my first question as I could have hoped for.</p>
<p>anyone know who’s actually on the committee?</p>
<p>No idea. I’ve heard stories, though…</p>
<p>I’ve been told that your application first goes through a regional officer before going to committee, as fgsfds said. I’ve also heard from some sources that admissions people often have to defend your application against a similar application from somebody else. The latter thought scares me inside.</p>
<p>^ That’s… really scary.
Now I gotta keep telling myself that I’ve done all I could and it’s out of my hands now…</p>
<p>I watched this video documentary about how they do committee evaluations at GT, and I’m guessing it could be similar to Yale.
So once the apps reach committee (after being separately read by several members) a head/senior admissions person, 2 or 3 regular admissions counselors, and a senior student (at least at GT) all discuss the app and then give them a rating/score. They add up everyone’s scores and save it.
Then, once all possible applicants have been sifted through and assigned a number, they take the top __% of the applicants to be accepted (so for SCEA it would be around 17-20%).
Again, this is completely based on my fuzzy memory of this video we watched about college admissions last year. I doubt it’s <em>exactly</em> this way at Yale.
But it’s fun to imagine =)</p>
<p>My mother’s friend’s daughter interned at an admission’s committee for a somewhat prestigious university that got tons of apps each year (I don’t remember which college specifically, but it was on the east coast).
According to her, not everybody’s application even gets carefully looked at. For the early round, if the committee runs out of the time, the application gets deferred. In the regular decision, it gets waitlisted (that’s why most waitlists aren’t ranked).
I’m not sure how much I believe her, but who knows. Go figure. :/</p>
<p>^
That’s hard to believe… I’d punch Yale in the face if they can’t give every application its fair share of time, especially after each applicant put 4 hard years, if not more, into forming it!</p>
<p>Hmph.</p>
<p>^
Well I guess that’s why Yale has Regional Officers. At least someone is somewhat carefully reading it.</p>
<p>^
Yeah.
I just need to stop thinking about my application, lol. It’s damaging me.</p>
<p>I’d think if they were really crunched for time, they’d look at numbers first to decide which applications they give a hard look at. </p>
<p>I’m not implying that they’d pass over applicants with more avg scores, though either. It seems silly for a school, even Yale, to just defer every single applicant at the bottom of the pile.</p>
<p>Lol, well I guess the magic is in the mystery…</p>
<p>…
YALE PLEASE ACCEPT ME.</p>
<p>The Penn admissions officer of my region told us that she reviews the applications, then presents them before a <em>committee</em> that finally decides who it likes. May it like me.</p>
<p>By it i meant Yale.</p>
<p>What if our regional rep is a numbnuts</p>
<p>I guess you’re in trouble. Unless your application is shockingly poor, in which case he might be the only one to discern any potential in it - in which case you’ve been very lucky.</p>
<p>I think they hold a massive lottery with randomly picked college apps, where each admissions officer holds an application that they picked up on their way into the conference room as a raffle ticket. It’s a nice way of going about things because it really rewards the admissions officers for their hard work, while getting the most diverse student body possible…</p>
<p>haha overacheiver 
a lottery system could really only increase my chances.</p>
<p>I remember a Yale admission officer saying that a committee must UNANIMOUSLY agree to accept you for you to get admitted, whether it’s SCEA or RD. And the committee usually consists of a professor, a senior officer, the regional officer, and a few alumnis/students.</p>