Was on an interesting conference call the other day with Yale’s Dean of Admissions, Jeremiah Quinlan. He provided some interesting insights on the process that I think posters here often speculate about. The process he describes is similar to the Wesleyan process described in the “Gatekeepers” and even in the film “Admission”.
The Yale admissions officers are each given a region. The regions are at least largely geographic because he spoke in geographic terms and probably defined by the number of applications they anticipate receiving from that region to even out the workload. After a first sorting by the officer responsible for the region, there is a second reading to get the list down to candidates that would go before the Committee. There was no suggestion that each region got an equal number of candidates in to the next round. Of the 33,000 applicants for the class of 2021, he described 20,000 as academically qualified. By the time they got to the Committee, the list was culled to about 6,000. So yes, while candidates are considered in pools of various sorts, the first 14,000 cuts of qualified candidates is done primarily by 1 or 2 individuals that are looking through a geographic pool. I am sure they have subpools in mind when they go through their portfolio, but when you deal with decisions made by 1 or 2 persons, human subjectivity will be a bigger factor since the decision is not based on a large group consensus. As they go into Committee, each Regional officer is tasked with prioritizing their list of candidates who are being considered and is the advocate for those candidates. It is not hard to imagine that there are candidates which fly through the Committee by dint of their accomplishments and how they presented themselves through their essays, LoR’s and EC’s (these are likely the kids who get admitted into multiple highly selectives). I suspect it is at the next level of candidates when the Committee is trying to build their “ideal class”, that comparison based on subpools becomes a larger factor. I would also hazard a guess that based on the sheer number of applications each officer has to go through in the first round, the first sorting (conscious or unconscious) will be based on objective stat’s, and the further you fall down that curve, the greater the need for something in the subjectives to jump out to move on.