<p>I would like to find out how much does an adcom member spend on each app before saying yes/no. Is the estimate below reasonable?</p>
<ul>
<li>Let's say the college gets 20,000 apps to process. They have about 4 months (Dec-March) to completely process these apps, make their decisions, and send out letters.</li>
<li>This comes to 5000 apps/mon</li>
<li>Say there are 10 adcom members reading all the apps (not sure if this a reasonable number). It means that each adcom member has to process 500 apps/mon. Now, when I say process, it means doing whatever they do with an app, including entereing the app into a PC db, checking for completeness, sorting/filing/arranging, making comments on the various parts of the app, reading the essays, etc., shortlisting a few for further discussion etc.</li>
<li>If they work 30 days/month, it comes to about 17 apps/day. </li>
<li>if the work 17 hours/day(yeah, sure!), it comes to 1 hour per app. More like 45 minutes (0.75 hours/app) given that they may work only 12 hours/day, every day of the month, non-stop for 4 months.</li>
<li>Their efficiency to absorb any essay, appreciate any material sent by the application, will be very low towards the end of the day!</li>
</ul>
<p>So, in ~1 hour they have to completely process, as detailed above, an application, and arrive at a decision!</p>
<ul>
<li>If there are only 10,000 apps, they get 1.5 hours/app</li>
<li>if there are 10, 000 apps and there are 20 adcom people, they have 3 hours/app</li>
<li>if there are 10,000 apps, and 20 people, and say 5 months (Nov-Mar), then they get about 3.5 hours/app.</li>
</ul>
<p>Now, this is humanly impossible to give your best attention to an app, and come to a decision if you spend about 3 hours/app total. </p>
<p>Does the above scenario look real?</p>