<p>In my vision of the utopian Brown adcom meeting, all the admissions counselors are sitting at a large boardroom table while they peruse my all As transcript, glance at my stellar SAT Scores and ohh and ahh over my brilliant and witty essays. They immediately and unanimously vote to admit me. I know that the hard, cold reality is very different. Does anyone have any idea what goes on behind those pearly admission gates? I am under the impression that your regional counselor reviews all the applications from his/her geographic assigned area and then only presents the ones he/she likes to the rest of the committee. The rest of the unfortunates are put in the reject pile without a second glance. Is this true? After 4 years of hard work, untold hours on those essays, I hate to think that my application to Brown will be relegated into the trash heap based on one person’s opinion. However, given the huge volume that the committee has to go through in the next few weeks before ED decisions come out, I fear that is exactly what happens. Someone - tell me it ain’t so…</p>
<p>My uncle used to work in admissions, and this is what he said:
“The way the admission process works is each admission officer sits around a large conference table and each officer would take turns arguing on behalf of their best applicants (any applicant who wasn’t compelling enough after the application review or essay read-through wasn’t even brought into the conference room). The job of the other admissions officers in the room is to argue against that same applicant. The admission officer who has to argue for your application needs all the ammunition you can give them so that they can fight back and, more importantly, win the argument about why you should be admitted to Brown and why it would be a great loss for the University if you weren’t.”</p>
<p>I understand. But who reads it through? What your uncle says implies that the majority of the applications get only one read through before being discarded. Only a select few actually get presented before the committee. Correct? So, it’s really up to the whim and the personal likes and dislikes of one individual. If that person happens to not care for your essay or is not impressed with your ECs you are out. So in the end, unless you have a hook, it’s really a crap shoot.</p>
<p>At our campus info session, the admissions officer said that each and every application is read by three different people.</p>
<p>Olive007 is correct. Three different regional officers read your apps. SO you have 3 chances. I think that’s pretty fair.</p>
<p>That’s encouraging. I didn’t remember hearing that at the info session. Thanks.</p>
<p>It doesn’t seem as if they have time to debate on every single application, lol.</p>