<p>Quite startling that colleges actually track "silent electronic footprints" left by students to gauge interest:</p>
<p>
[quote]
They can tell whether individual applicants clicked to open email communications, logged into the system to check the status of an application, and not only whether they called the school, but how long that phone call lasted. If the school gets the sense that an applicant isn't interested, that's factored in.
<p>Why is it startling? The previous article about Lehigh admissions mentioned something similar.</p>
<p>The use of “level of applicant’s interest” is something that students need to watch out for, especially when trying to determine safeties (a school using “level of applicant’s interest” presumably does not want to be a safety and should not be treated as such). Of course, beyond that is determine what type of “interest” the school is looking for, since they may all differ in what they look for.</p>
<p>I assumed “interest” was determined by campus visits, interviews, essay topics and other transparent displays. Some people are just more compulsive than others, frequently checking application status and sending lots of emails. Should that really be a criteria for admission?</p>
<p>Erin’s Dad, yes, it does place lower income students at a tremendous disadvantage. This is when an excellent school counselor can step it up for such kids by bringing these things to a school’s attention.</p>
<p>Why should a school want to admit someone who does not want to be there, will not love the place if he enrolls, and will not be an active alumnus?</p>
<p>College admissions is only the starting point. The four years at the school also matter a lot - both to the college and to the student. Many of us consider ourselves to have a lifetime connection with our alma maters, a connection that does not die when we graduate. Everyone benefits when students are happy to be there. A college benefits when its alums donate (even small amounts - and yes, even small amounts count for US News rank), volunteer, meet with job-hunting seniors, proudly display their school pride, get on career panels, and mentor students. </p>
<p>I really, really do not “get” what is so controversial about wanting students who want to be there. I certainly understand that the methods of figuring that out might be debatable, but…</p>
<p>The thread “colleges your child crossed off the list after visiting” reveals some unfair assumptions made by students about colleges based on a short visit. I think colleges are likewise being unfair to some students by ranking their application based on the number of times they click on the admission status button or call the admission office. And the controversy is whether the colleges are doing this for noble reasons or simply to improve their yield and appearance of exclusivity.</p>
<p>The danger is that some students are going to be making nuisance calls to admissions just to show their interest. I hadn’t heard before that some colleges watch whether the student has opened all of their college emails. Isn’t technology wonderful?</p>
<p>I think the methods are what many of us consider controversial.</p>
<p>There is also the fact that a lot of kids not so interested in certain schools because they are so star struck about more selective ones, are not going to be accepted those few highly selective schools. These are the kids who are applying to HPY et al. But they may not be getting accepted to them. F&M, Gettysburg, Tulane, Holy Cross, Lehigh may be what their choices end up being. So they are supposed to pretend to be very interested in those school when, really, they are not? When they are on their knees practically praying to get into HPY et al or UPenn at least, pretty danged tough to get hepped up about Lehigh. </p>
<p>Yet when the chips are all in, Lehigh is really hot to get these studs with the stats to have had the possibilities of getting into those schools. The reality is that the A student with all those AP courses, and a top debater, great ECs, and nearly perfect SAT scores right down to the SAT2s, and the wonderful recs who would prefer to go to an ivy than to Lehigh is going to be a great asset for Lehigh and if Lehigh ignores all of these Ivy wannabes, they are not going to have the same students they do. So while they dangle the interest factor as an issue, they are also smacking their lips at the very students who are not particularly interested in them and they will kick the borderline student in the teeth to get that stud if they could. </p>
<p>The reality is that I see a lot of kids who applied to highly selective schools who did not really show a whole lot of interest in their second round choices get accepted to all of them, whereas those kids for whom those schools were first choice and they showed mega interest in them, have more of chance of getting rejected. I see this year in and year out, this year included. My sons’ friends are wiping off their tears and looking at Wash U, F&M, GW, Lehigh and other excellent schools that accepted them, when they really wanted HPY or other ivy. And there are just as many who had those second/third choice schools as firsties for themselves that were denied for all the interest they showed. So I don’t know how much that interest factor even counts. Seems to me that the adcoms want it and don’t particularly respond to it. They love to tell stories of how they turned down the ones with their tongues hanging out to get accepted, who sent all the emails, post cards, gifts.</p>
<p>Many schools make the assumption that many of the applicants consider them as acceptable schools, even if not the applicants’ first choice. They simply adjust their yield expectations appropriately when deciding whom to admit (and they may have yield modeling based on the stats of the applicant, knowing that higher stats applicants tend to have lower yield). They know that many students will be happy at their 2nd, 3rd, etc. choice school which the school may be.</p>
<p>Although that makes their yield lower, it avoids trying to guess at the “level of applicant’s interest” or recording visits, calls to admission offices, views on the application portal, etc…</p>
<p>Seriously, people send adcoms gifts? I thought that was just a joke. My son sent his regional admission’s officer a nice e-mail once he hit accept. :)</p>
<p>I think this has become a chicken and egg situation. Students apply more frequently to schools who rank highly and schools are ranked highly that have a high number of applicants. What I think needs to happen is that students need to carefully consider what they want in a school and choose schools that best meet those needs. I have no problem with a child deciding that it would be great to go to xxxelite University but to apply to every elite university with the hope that one will stick is a problem. It shows little thought about what ones academic goals truly are. Many kids are having to decide between schools that fit them well and schools that have the “wow” factor. Sadly the high number of applicants probably means that there are kids who truly want to go to said school and it fits them very well but they will not get the opportunity because the school chose someone who has 5 elite schools in his pocket. I can’t imagine that even Harvard has 30+thousand students who really want to attend. I think the college landscape was a lot more accurate 15 years ago before the days of the common app and USNWR was considered the aspiring college students bible.</p>
<p>The tracking of electronic footprints is a new one for me, too. If it’s being used in conjunction with all the other marks of interest (visits, attending road show presentations, emailing for info, etc) then maybe no harm no foul. If a student who reads every email somehow gathers more admission brownie points than the untrackable student who’s carefully explored the school website, then those adcoms would be idiots. :)</p>
<p>I think it’s a good personality trait to be able to focus on other things besides clicking on the admissions portal every five minutes. And some kids are able to locate answers to their questions on the website without making a phone call, also a desirable quality. In lots of cases mom or dad is the one checking the portal anyway.</p>
<p>Note that there are also other contexts where applicants may feel that they have to game the “level of applicant’s interest”, such as finding the “what other schools are you applying to?” question on the application.</p>
<p>The main problem is that a University should be above all the silly game playing because it encourages students to become silly game players. Consider that it may be too late since former game playing students now run the university. The cycle of abuse is now complete. The abused child is now the parent.</p>
<p>I think some of this is “fall-out” from kids applying to so many colleges. While many, many kids still only apply to a handful there are still a heck of alot that apply to ten or more. Gauging interest seems to me to be a good way to weed out the chronic appliers and leverage some of the negatives of the common app.</p>