Washington Post: Inside view of an admissions committee

Applying to College
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<p>Inside the George Washington University admissions shop, here's a look at what gets said inside an admissions committee at a selective college.
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/inside-the-admissions-process-at-george-washington-university/2014/03/22/f86b85fa-aee6-11e3-a49e-76adc9210f19_story.html"&gt;http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/inside-the-admissions-process-at-george-washington-university/2014/03/22/f86b85fa-aee6-11e3-a49e-76adc9210f19_story.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>And here are excerpts of the GW team weighing prospects of real apps:
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/the-committee-excerpts-from-inside-the-inner-sanctum-of-gw-admissions/2014/03/22/d49b6ab2-b127-11e3-95e8-39bef8e9a48b_story.html"&gt;http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/the-committee-excerpts-from-inside-the-inner-sanctum-of-gw-admissions/2014/03/22/d49b6ab2-b127-11e3-95e8-39bef8e9a48b_story.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Makes for an interesting moot court question for existing and aspiring law school students. Did GW violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) by allowing a reporter of the Washington Post to sit in on admission committee evaluations where the private information of students protected by that act was revealed and discussed? Revealing the information in students’ files to the press is not one of the listed exceptions to the college’s requirement not to reveal such information to outsiders.</p>

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<p>No surprises in either article. Yawn.</p>

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<p>^^ Repeated for emphasis.</p>

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<p>Surprising Press Release… :O</p>

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<p>No surprises for CC veterans, but I’ll bet a lot of parents of HS underclassmen, who don’t read CC, will read this and not pick up on the one thing no one ever tells them - rigor is paramount, as is really caring about the schools you apply to. And even if they do pick up on it, it’s often to late to do anything about rigor. </p>

<p>There needs to be a meeting in the 8th grade at every school in America that tells parents and kids that THIS is what colleges will be looking at in four years, choose wisely.</p>

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<p>In a word, no.</p>

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<p>FERPA doesn’t cover applicants, only enrolled students. </p>

<p>Also, it only applies to institutions which receive Federal funds - which is most, but not all, colleges.</p>

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<p>This is a school that has been in trouble for lying about information twice. I see a number of problems with the articles. For one, very few schools are need aware in admissions and the article says that it’s a usual thing. Nope. 10000 students going to committee? That’s about half. I don’t think so. Do the math on how many hours of committee meetings that means. Doesn’t make any sense. And yes, there are formulas. Usually at top schools, there is a point system there, Test scores, gpa/class rank, difficulty of courses, ECs, essays, and recs with an overlay of special hooks that can put the student app in a whole other pool when it comes to URM, legacy, athletic recruit, status.</p>