<p>Are applicants' stats looked at first, then the top evaluated by EC's, essay, etc? Or is every applicant looked at holistically?</p>
<p>Does more than one person review each applicant? Is there a selection committee that discusses each applicant? </p>
<p>Are students compared and then the most desirable chosen? For example, say a school has a 20% acceptance rate. Do they take 5 applicants and choose 1? </p>
<p>Does anyone know how this works? I'm really curious</p>
<p>There are about 2500 universities and four-year colleges in the U.S. They don’t all have the same procedures or criteria. Some are very numbers driven; some are holistic. </p>
<p>Your question is just too broad to be answered in a couple of sentences, but if you spend some time reading about the process for yourself, you should get a sense of how it works.</p>
<p>"Are students compared and then the most desirable chosen? For example, say a school has a 20% acceptance rate. Do they take 5 applicants and choose 1? "</p>
<p>The acceptance rate is a statistic based on # students offered admission (based on the number of projected slots by the college) versus the # of applicants. The numerator is more or less fixed. The # applicants rises and falls. The admit rate examines this ratio – it’s not a goal for the actual office in deliberating. If they to to the final pile and there are too many, some get cut. If there are still slots open, they go back and add a few more.</p>
<p>For a very selective college, listen to this:
[Behind</a> The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst? : NPR](<a href=“Behind The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst? : NPR”>Behind The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst? : NPR)</p>
<p>But like Sikorsky said, most colleges don’ t go through this process. They look at GPA and test scores and voila. accept or rejected. Very simple.</p>
<p>They drop all of the names into a flaming goblet, and then at a special ceremony, the goblet of fire spits out the names of those who are accepted.
Wait, that’s the tri-wizard tournament.</p>
<p>Actually, nanotechnology, your interpretation seems to make more sense than how it works most of the time.</p>