“In the admissions process, a college will recieve your application, which will be read by one or two people who will then place it in one of three ‘stacks’: definite it (celebrities, sons and daughters of politicians, incredible applications, top donating legacies, etc.), definite reject (people who just obviously dont belong there), and review. The ‘review’ stack will then be presented to the admissions committee, who will decide as a whole whether or not to accept the applicant.”
<p>Different colleges do it differently. I don't think this is true of most colleges. What ususally happens is one or two people read it and then "represent" you to the admissions comittee of about 10 ppl. If you're a definite it, then you gotta mention a few facts and everyone agrees that you're in. Admissions for regular people usually takes more time as the person who read your app presents your case and everyone decides.</p>
<p>But I guess they do have those 3 stacks, but I would say AFTER they have met with the comittee. Or maybe they make those 3 preliminary stacks just to organise the presentation to the comitee. Whichever.</p>
<p>"In the admissions process, a college will recieve your application, which will be read by one or two people who will then place it in one of three 'stacks': definite it (celebrities, sons and daughters of politicians, incredible applications, top donating legacies, etc.), definite reject (people who just obviously dont belong there), and review. The 'review' stack will then be presented to the admissions committee, who will decide as a whole whether or not to accept the applicant."</p>
<p>For the most part, this could be true. This may not be the case for every institution, but a lot of them may do this.</p>
<p>Read the Gatekeepers. Although each college has its own system for reviewing and evaluating applications, this book gives an excellent insight into how the process works. </p>
<p>I think the "3 stack" system is accurate in concept if not in practice -- you're either definitely in (a very small percentage), definitely out (a big chunk) or in the maybe yes/maybe no pile with everybody else. This is where it gets difficult to predict.</p>
<p>There is no way to generalize. Some schools might have just 2-3 people read the app (the regional officer plus the dean). At others, the entire committee discusses and votes on every single application, even ones that the regional officer thinks are completely hopeless.</p>
<p>The "three stack" concept is going to be operating, at some level, in every single kind of decision-making, whether the task is admitting college students or picking the rotten cherries out of a bag that's been in the fridge too long. Some are obviously fine, others obviously nasty, and some in the middle are going to need a second look. But that doesn't tell you how many people are going to read or vote on your college app.</p>
<p>At many schools all applications are read by 2 separate people. extremely high or low ratings can and probably does lead to auto admits and auto rejections. I think that maybe half of the applications go to committee, where they discussed. </p>
<p>Here is the thread for the video of the admissions process (amherst) </p>
<p>You usually have two readers-- primary and secondary and they read everything in about 20 minutes and make a summary sheet about you. Then if your app gets taken to committee, someone represents you (sometimes your regional rep) and they just sort shout out your stats and vote yay or nay. There was a video about Amherst a while ago that showed it pretty clearly.</p>
<p>Wow that Amherst video was absolutely fascinating. I've never seen such a close look at the process. It makes you think, wow, this process isn't as in depth as hypothesized, and really, it could be up to somebody's mood that day...</p>