<p>"Dear Yvette,
My name is Josh Levy and I am the admissions counselor responsible for your application to Oberlin. I've just had the chance to read over your application and I wanted to say hello and ask about your essay. From what I can tell, you're a radio junkie and more specifically that you really like NPR. If I'm correct, what shows do you enjoy listening to? I have a fondness for 'Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me' and 'Car Talk'."</p>
<p>Does this happen often? Very exciting and cool. Can't put my love for this school into words!</p>
<p>There is nothing negative to read into this…but I wouldn’t go overboard and pin your hopes on Oberlin either. Many colleges have a process for signaling their intent to admit an impressive applicant in advance of the decision date. If that was your case – and if Oberlin uses the process (I don’t know whether it does) – you would get a so-called “Likely” letter that makes it clear, in unambiguous language, that you can expect an admission letter around April 1 (with provisos that you must maintain your grades, avoid felony convictions, etc.) Your e-mail communication is not a “likely” letter, so don’t start withdrawing applications (duh) or getting too emotionally invested in an expected admission decision.</p>
<p>Each year around this stage of the admission cycle, the parent of a recent Oberlin applicant who was not admitted visits this forum to warn about friendly gestures from Oberlin admission officers – much like this one – and how Oberlin is unique in making these kinds of connections with applicants and, in his opinion, needlessly getting their hopes up. I think it’s terrific that Oberlin admission officers do this and take an active interest in the applicants and what they’re doing. The problem is not that they do this as much as it is that most other colleges do not do this. It’s the uniqueness of this practice that (unintentionally, one assumes) creates a heightened expectation among applicants that would not exist if this was standard among Oberlin’s peer institutions.</p>
<p>I would expect and hope that regional admissions counselors don’t reach out to people that they’re fairly certain will not be offered admission…and that they only do so for applicants that bowl them over. But the decision process at Oberlin is a collegial one, so your regional admission officer has but one vote – and the other decision makers may not have any awareness of your application at this point. (I say none of this with certainty as to where the process stands, in general, or with respect to your application in particular.)</p>
<p>There’s a PBS video that’s linked all over this web site showing an inside look into the Amherst admission process from a couple years ago. One of the most telling moments is when the Dean of Admission is at the table with all of the other admission counselors. The Dean goes to bat for an applicant, outlining how impressed he is and how the Dean believes this applicant will be a great future member of the Amherst community. The other counselors – people who report to him – proceed to totally blow him off and vote him down. He doesn’t like the outcome, expresses his disappointment, and that’s that. They move to the next file and start over again. The applicant got a rejection letter that was presumably indistinguishable from all the other rejection letters that Amherst sent out. I’m willing to bet that there was no “…but the Dean of Admission thinks you’re the cat’s pajamas” message scribbled onto that rejection letter. And I don’t think it mattered if it was scribbled in. Who knows what “signals” or “vibes” the applicant had – from the Dean of Admission – after an interview or maybe other exchanges during the application process? Whether it was a big let-down or just your run-of-the-mill let-down, it was a let-down and even the Dean of Admission was powerless to stop it from happening.</p>
<p>If the point of interactions like the e-mail you received is to get the most easily identifiable successful applicants feeling vested in Oberlin before the wave of admission letters hits their mailboxes, then I would hope that Oberlin would also transmit letters to these applicants that are explicit and firm in conveying Oberlin’s intentions. Until you get a “likely” letter, you can feel upbeat that you may possibly have one cheerleader in the room when the time comes to make a final decision on your application – but, as the Amherst video should warn you, even if that’s true, that’s still a long way from anything you want to bank on emotionally.</p>
<p>Here’s a link to a similar thread – where not everyone who got personalized communications had good news from Oberlin when decisions were mailed out:</p>
<p>Interesting, thanks for the info guys. I’ll be sure not to read into this email too much, but it has certainly been fun corresponding with the admissions counselor! He even said he remembered me from a college fair (when I talked to him very very briefly – probably only a minute or two).</p>
<p>I think that’s the number one thing you should take away from these communications: that they’re enjoyable exchanges for their own sake and not because you hope that they’re a crystal ball offering up some sort of astral projection that there’s an Oberlin acceptance letter in your future.</p>
<p>Two final (and authoritative) notes from me on this point and how these communications fit into the big picture.</p>
<p>First, there’s this on-point overview from ElizabethHouston:</p>
<p>I for one got accepted out of the blue without receiving correspondence from admissions at all between submitting my application and receiving my acceptance decision.</p>
<p>It really sounds like your reader is interested in you, but it will also depend on others in the committee as well, as other posters have stated :)</p>
<p>Perhaps the admissions person wanted additional information to strengthen their case in the meeting. My daughter got am email asking why she hadn’t visited. She had a good answer and was ultimately admitted.</p>
<p>Very good point, fiddlecanoe. DS also got one of these letters the other week, asking for more info about his projects. We are crossing our fingers, as its his number one choice. DS, though, saw it for what it was - the rep just really wanted to know more about his projects. </p>
<p>fiddlecanoe, is your daughter there now? It was our visit to Oberlin and going on an impromptu, personal tour with two fabulous students that sealed the deal for DS.</p>
<p>Yes, she is a junior now. We visited after getting the admission letter. She knew a good deal about Oberlin since I had gone there, and she knew other students who had liked it. But on the visit she was really sold.</p>
<p>Lucky girl! If those two students, who happily spent an hour and a half with us, are any indication of a typical Oberlin student, you have a winner of a daughter!</p>