this board, is the fact that one’s chances at any school depend so significantly on the prejudices of the admissions counselors who are the readers assigned to your application.
I constantly read these threads that say, “assess my chances and such and such school”. These threads are then followed by a list of EC’s, SAT 2 scores, SAT 1 scores, GPA info, etc.
Every time I read one of these threads I am thinking, “what about the luck of the draw; what about whether the person reading the file, values your strengths”
As someone who makes his career in the admissions business, I can tell you that whether an applicant goes to a committee that I chair or one of the two other committees that are chaired by other members of our admissions team, the ultimate fate of borderline applicants and sometimes even non borderline applicants, is significantly influenced by the prioriites, preferences and dislikes of the people who read the file.
I’d like to see more attention being given to this human side of the admissions process which is much different than a robot that you punch some statistics in and get a predicted result: admissions will never be so objective as long as human beings who have such disparate perceptions of, “who they find appealing” play such a significant role in the admissions process.
Now if we are referring to some larger schools who calculate a GPA and look at an SAT score and make a decision then we can have these, “what are my chances” conversations with more confidence, but I see too many people pontificating about the liklihood of an admittance when admissions simply doesn’t work that way. Can their be discussions of probability? Of course this is understandable and even legitimate, but anything even close to a dogmatic verdict when one gives some stats and asks, “what are my chances” should be eschewed.
Thoughts?