http://www.businessinsider.com/ivy-league-admissions-officer-reveals-how-they-pick-students-2015-8
Whoa! You’re telling me they have people read the application independently and each decide whether to accept, deny, or waitlist and if there’s a disagreement they discuss it? Never would have guessed that’s how it works. What amazing insight will BI deliver next?
Haha, I agree, the BI excerpts weren’t particularly insightful or unique. But if you click through to the actual Reddit Q&A, I thought a lot of the admission officer comments were pretty interesting.
I agree, amazing. Next you’ll tell us that when someone is hired for a job, they ask the interviewers whether they are a hire, or not, or maybe, and then they’ll talk about it if they don’t agree!
And when we go out to eat in my family, and I say “McDonald’s” and we all agree, we all go and don’t discuss it any more!
Yes, reading the actual reddit thread was a bit more interesting and particularly interesting to see how informed many of the more experienced posters are as I didn’t really see anything I didn’t already know (e.g. ED doesn’t actually provide a boost, 40% of Cornell’s application pool is perfectly qualified for admittance, the importance of “level of awesomeness”)
It’s funny how many people ( in the BI comments section) believe that minorities get bonus points in college admissions when there are just too many high stats minorities applying in the first place to give bonus points to.
I actually read somewhere (don’t remember where, sorry) that a lot of the high stats minorities who get in are actually from other countries, or first-generation immigrants, rather than being from families that have been here for generations and faced associated disadvantages across multiple generations. So, if that’s true, colleges would be able to display diversity in brochures without necessarily having to give anyone bonus points.
Edit: I’m curious. Have any of you come across info related to that one way or another?
Well, as a newbie mom in this college app thing, I thought the description of the process was interesting. Not that it surprised me, but I hadn’t read how it worked. And just to be helpful 
here’s a link to the original from which it was excerpted, which does have a ton more stuff (and is kind of like CC discussions):
[deleted link - not allowed]
But can anyone share how similar or different the Cornell process might be at other schools, from CTCL schools to large state universities?
“Lastly siblings are not really considered legacy but if you mention that you have a sibling that has attended or is currently attending the school to which you are applying then it provides additional information to the admissions office. The officer reading your application will be able to pull up your sibling’s transcript and see if they are doing well at the school. If they are doing well then it will provide a positive bit of feedback that you might be as studious as your sibling and that your sibling might be able to provide information that would help you succeed at that university.
I hope this helps! I hope this answers your questions.”
^^I found this to be very interesting. Both my D’s attended NYU. I thought it might give my younger D a slight bump, but I never thought that an admissions officer might pull up her older sister’s transcript. (Luckily big sister had a 3.5+ gpa and was a MT major–which made younger D’s experience in MT seem legit.)
@MomOnALaptop I’d link to the relevant comment in the original thread, but I see that the mods removed your link for some reason. 
Anyway, in his response to Reddit user /u/opg321, he talks about University of Texas, so that might cover your Q about large state universities…CTCL schools are probably a bit different, though. Don’t they tend to be smaller, and less focused on numbers? Cornell’s pretty large, and higher-ranked in USNWR, so they probably need to consider that more…
And @uskoolfish The siblings thing doesn’t really strike me as being 100% fair…
“If they are doing well then it will provide a positive bit of feedback that you might be as studious as your sibling and that your sibling might be able to provide information that would help you succeed at that university.”
I assume the opposite is true as well? if the older sibling ends up being an underachiever, or screws up in some way, the younger ones would be at a disadvantage?
UT is unique, as far as I know. If you’re in the top 10 percent of your class in a Texas high school, you’re in automatically. The pros and cons are obvious. I have a sense that California also has some unique aspects. But those are big huge mega-states; others would be different to some extent. Ditto smaller schools with holistic admission: they’d be different from Cornell … maybe. Or maybe it’s the same process.
In terms of admissions strategies, I don’t think the technical process (how many minutes spent per reader etc) would make much if any difference; as a general rule stats would matter more with state schools, essays et al would matter more for holistic schools. But it’d be interesting to hear how the process works, and I figure there are folks here who are very informed on that. More so than me, certainly
(BTW the link I posted goes to a Reddit discussion, and I know that CC doesn’t allow links to other college discussion sites, but before it was deleted I didn’t KNOW there was a whole section on Reddit with college talk LOL. It just seemed like a random discussion. But I guess that’d be why it’s deleted.)
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Yes, I removed it; if asterisks show in your post, that means it’s not allowed, and when members click on the link, they will get an error.
momonalaptop:
For UT Austin, the rules have changed. Its no longer the top 10%, its the top 7-8%
That just reminds me that movie about admission.
maddyg, the school I know best is very attentive to qualified domestic kids who may be in a challenged SES position…
The idea Cornell only has two readers before committee seems much like UC. The school I know best starts with the regional rep, than can have more than one subsequent read, many times at least two more looks, with comments. Some parts of the reddit discussion are the best I’ve seen. Just remember, he’s ultimately selling his services and part of that is by establishing his “authority” in the potential clients’ minds.
Also, he was only in the Cornell position 2 years (and most of the first is a learning experience) and left in 2010.
"UT is unique, as far as I know. If you’re in the top 10 percent of your class in a Texas high school, you’re in automatically. The pros and cons are obvious. I have a sense that California also has some unique aspects. But those are big huge mega-states; others would be different to some extent. Ditto smaller schools with holistic admission: they’d be different from Cornell … maybe. Or maybe it’s the same process.
@MomOnALaptop I know that the state of Florida has several public universities/colleges that offer something fairly similar.
A few links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright_Futures_Scholarship_Program
http://admissions.ucf.edu/toptenknights/
These aren’t necessarily high-ranked schools, of course, but those programs can definitely remove a lot of the stress related to applying for in-state students, at least 
I think larger schools (like Cornell) definitely do things more similarly to other large state ones like UT and UC.
Does anyone know how schools like the ones in CTCL do it? @lookingforward , maybe you can share what you know about the school you mentioned? How do they do things?
Although Cornell is large, each of their 7 colleges handle their own admissions independent of each other, which makes things much more manageable
UT is not unique. Arizona also does guaranteed acceptances (and merit aid if I remember correctly) for top in state high school students.
@maddyg : Bright Futures is Florida’s lottery scholarship. It has nothing to do with being auto-admitted to a university because of your placement in the top ten (or eight or five) percent of the class. The only Florida state uni to do that is UCF (the Top Ten Knights program, your second link).
Whoops! My mistake. Thanks for pointing it out, @petrichor11 : you’re right. Bright Futures just provides significant scholarship money to students who stay in state and meet certain criteria. But, yes, UCF is the only one to automatically admit students.
Still curious about the CTCL schools (Colleges That Change Lives).
For those who are not familiar with these schools, here’s a list: