<p>Gtbguy1 - Kids need to send in their SAT scores and such before they are positive they will apply to some schools. Our daughter has 3 “incomplete” applications at schools she thought she would apply to and then, after visiting and receiving some early acceptances, she decided to not apply. These schools have her scores and teacher recommendations and have called/emailed etc. extending her deadline to get her to apply but she wasn’t interested. Not sure if they are considered in the number of applications for the schools.</p>
<p>It is my understanding that for common data set information a school only counts completed applications.</p>
<p>I’ve seen college newspaper articles (e.g. from Yale or Stanford) that mention the # applications, as well as the # incomplete applications; the former is always used as the official count, as should be the case, though the number of incomplete applications would be pretty small, something like 200 or 300. That’s why it’s BS that schools like West Point count in all “started applications” in their total # of applications, so that they can pretend their acceptance rate is 11% (otherwise they’d have a 30-50% acceptance rate).</p>
<p>As far as I’ve read, the admissions process at top schools has a few general themes: a large team of readers is broken down into committees, in which more than one adcom will read your application (sometimes assigning a rating to the application as well); they debate the applications in committee and from there decide to admit/reject or re-read your application in the next round. They do this until they can whittle down the class, and toward the finish line it’s even easier: once they have their target size, they just waitlist the rest of those that were still in competition. </p>
<p>Since we don’t know how many committees there are, how many people read each app in each round, how many rounds there are, etc. it’s impossible to tell how much time is spent on your application, but for on-the-fence ones, the cumulative total can be well over an hour. I’ve read articles where adcoms say they spend 15-20 minutes on the applications, on average for each round. The initial rounds move faster because lots are rejected.</p>
<p>I also don’t think the admissions staff would be only 20. A few years ago when Stanford’s applicant pool was ~30,000, its admissions website actually had a list of the adcoms and the regions they were in charge of. IIRC there were about 50 of them. I imagine that the top schools with 30,000+ applications are increasing their admissions staffs to keep up with the pace. I know Stanford’s increased its staff (in part because of its new interview program).</p>
<p>Another thing to remember is that the total # applications is slightly less a burden than you might think, since many students apply early. The RD round tends to have weaker applicants on the whole than in the early round, and I think it’s easier for adcoms to decide those cases quickly. A Stanford Daily article from 1998 had said about half the applicants drop out of competition after the first round. I wonder how much that may have changed today, if at all.</p>
<p>[MIT</a> admissions has an informative blurb about how their process works:](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/selection]MIT”>Our selection process | MIT Admissions)</p>
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<p>A friend and I were just talking about this yesterday. She knows someone who works in a Northeast college were the 1st round person is expected to weed thru 100 applications a day. That’s about 5 minutes per app.</p>
<p>“That’s about 5 minutes per app.”</p>
<p>True, but there may be some that take 15 seconds, leaving greater time for the rest. I have my doubts that anyone continues to read an essay when the first two sentences are packed with mistakes.</p>
<p>Just for grins I went and looked at Michigan. They have 26 people working in undergraduate admissions + Ted Spencer (let’s assume he’s not reading). If they receive 42,000 applications they will read 1600 applications during the application cycle. I wouldn’t romanticize this, like Hanna says some will get 10-15 seconds and others will probably have several readers.</p>
<p>My understanding from years at Michigan is that it’s one of those places that has a ‘floor’ – in other words, if your scores are below a certain threshold, NO ONE will read your application. (The problem, of course, is if those thresholds are different for different ethnic groups, etc. so that you get a read with 480 in math if you belong to one group, but not another.)</p>
<p>Does anyone know if there’s a “special” pile for applicants who were deferred?</p>
<p>years ago, when Michigan lost its court case over the point system, they went to complex holistic admissions (my S had to write 3 essays for them). Apparently, they hired temp readers to assure all those essays and apps got read. Not sure if that’s still true, but I remember readingabout them. And I’m pretty sure the Supreme Court made it pretty clear they couldn’t have racially sorted SAT floors.</p>
<p>Re: half-completed apps–My S was accepted ED to a school. He had started an application to another school–sent SATs and filled out Part one of their app (basically just name/address), including paying fee. Also interviewed during a visit. this was the sum total of his “application”. No transcripts, no essay, no rest of the application (the meat of it.). He didn’t notify them of ED, because he figured he’d never finished the app, but come late March, he got an official rejection from that school. So yes, his incomplete app was obviously included in their numbers.</p>
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<p>I don’t understand, how can that be? Doesn’t that mean is basically telling a college what requirements must be fulfilled in admissions and that the university can not follow it’s own guidelines (to a degree)? Or is it because Michigan is a public school? It seems to me that establishing a base SAT score or range and GPA is an effective way of eliminating students who really have no chance of getting accepted even if the rest of the application was carefully considered (in most cases, obviously excluding those with hooks).</p>
<p>They could have base scores. They couldn’t have racial quotas or different baselines based on them.</p>
<p>These Committees have staffs that put the applications in folders (electronic or otherwise). On the cover they have the “vital stats” - such as GPA, SAT, Class Rank, race. Then the Committee members commence the “holistice” review and pretend not to be influenced by the stats on the outside of the folder.</p>
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<p>When I interview at work, I know within the first 5 minutes whether this is a candidate I"m interested in pursuing further to hire, or whether I’m going to gracefully show them the door. I don’t see the essential difference. Either someone grabs you, or they don’t.</p>
<p>It is essential that one write a compelling essay. Get right into it. Do not be subtle or the reader may never get to your brilliant point.</p>
<p>Exactly glido! That is why I always tell people that numbers are barely the beginning of the process, it’s a given that an applicants numbers are in the ballpark for each particular school, it’s the rest of the application that makes or breaks a kid. I am rarely surprised when a “perfect” score does not mean admission to colleges.</p>
<p>Read some of the “Post Your Essay” threads on CC. Many of them are very eye-opening, and not in a good way.</p>
<p>I also hire at work and when I’m faced with hundreds of resumes for a job I can eliminate some candidates in 10 seconds. I’m looking for some basic requirements and if they don’t fit at all I weed them out quickly. </p>
<p>As I start weeding them out I start taking more time reading more of the details. Then I have a couple of people read them as well and we make a pile of rejects and call backs. If even one person says no, it’s a no.</p>
<p>When I interview, I can tell within a minute if I’m not interested. However, when I’m down to a few it gets way more subtle of finding the right fit with the people I already have in place.</p>
<p>However, I completely realize that someone I tossed out from the get go could very well be fine at the job, they just did’t fit the criteria and there was no way to discern that they could.</p>
<p>A professional reader can probably tell a solid no within 15 seconds. As the process goes along it takes much longer.</p>
<p>You have to remember though - alot of the big publics don’t even require an essay and some schools also have their “special apps” or “quick review apps” that don’t require essays. So it probably wouldn’t even take more than a minute. Check scores, GPA and Letter of Rec and move the app on to the next level or reject.</p>
<p>I think we all know the reality of what goes on - it’s just a shame because it takes years to fill what is actually on the application and it can be turned away in a few seconds in alot of cases. Especially in these huge publics where they are now getting 40-50,000 applications a year - I think it would be very hard to have holistic application reviews.</p>
<p>It just says that essays are of critical importance, and that’s why “chance me” threads are so useless, because if you are a 2400/36/4.0 and your essay doesn’t grab the reader IMMEDIATELY, buh-bye. I think the essay is really the first impression, because let’s not kid ourselves that 3.9’s/2350’s and 3.85/2400’s and 3.75/2320’s don’t all blend together.</p>