<p>don't they realize the fate of applications is merely at the mercy of their whims? For example, the presenter might not be prepared for committee as she'd like, or they just read an article on something that moved them and the applicant discussed in committee just happens to come from a background represented in that article, people might be very tired and just want to get decisions over with rather than deliberate further and extend the working day, etc...</p>
<p>When people vote, do they realize that if the applicant had been presented just a little differently or maybe if the applicant was presented the same way but at a time when the people voting were under a different mood, the applicant's fate could have been altered forever just like that? How do admissions officers cope with this arbitrariness?</p>
<p>It’s their job. Yes, it seems as if they hold the fate of the world in their hands, but as someone who has been thru this twice, trust me when I say it all works out in the end. </p>
<p>People have all kinds of jobs that require extreme diligence and pressure but they don’t necessarily involve our most loved commodity… our own kid! We seem to accept imperfection in pretty much all things except when it comes to our offspring. Go figure. Totally understandable, but it’s life. It aint perfect. :)</p>
<p>Yeah, it stinks, but that’s the way it’s gotta be. Apply to many schools, many reaches too, and hey, you might just get lucky.
Let’s not kid ourselves. Private schools are FOR PROFIT. They offer need-based aid to create a diverse class because it’s best for THEIR image. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.</p>
<p>It’s the same with financial aid people. My daughter and I attended an informational meeting for the state school she ended up attending long after she was accepted and knew that’s where she wanted to go, because she’d been told that anyone who went to a meeting and requested a work study position would be guaranteed one. The head of the FA dept. ended up being the FA representative that night. We asked about the job availability and mentioned that she’d be borrowing most of the cost of her education. His response: “We have a scholarship assignment meeting tomorrow and I know that there is a scholarship for your major. I’ll see that it gets awarded to you.” So she ended up with a four-year scholarship that she may well not have had otherwise, as she definitely didn’t have the best GPA of the entering freshmen in her major. It wasn’t a huge amount, but considering the interest that would have accrued on the amount over the years had she borrowed it, it’s a big help. </p>
<p>And as for the campus job that she got - it was in his office, and she was trained for the position by her cousin. Just happened to be in the right place at the right time. At that point in her life, I don’t think she would have rushed to find a campus job and this way it was lined up for her before her high school graduation.</p>
<p>Agree it’s not perfect but it’s woven into the fabric of our lives. Sports team, politics, college admissions, job applications,…there will always be situations where a different day, a different person, a different pitch, a different application could have had a different outcome. Arbitrary…some would call it fate… but analyze, adjust or don’t adjust the things within control and move on is always the best advice.</p>
<p>Being in the right place at the right time is always good…that’s fate at work!</p>
<p>Can someone walk us through the admissions process - once a completed app is in the hands of the admissions office? I don’t know how they do it. Is it different between universities with different colleges, and LACs? between need blind and need aware schools?</p>
<p>I assume it is something like this: THere are many apps. So, each admissions officer gets a stack. Then each officer reads each app, and says, accept, deny, or waitlist. done.</p>
<p>In need aware schools, I know financials play a part. For such school , I suppose the decision might get sent to the FA folks and then the final decision is rendered.</p>
<p>For need blind schools, the admissions decision is final (ahem).</p>
<p>Hopkins Insider (link on their admissions page) has a great blog about admissions. A few years ago they did a video… don’t know if you can search it, but it was all about how admission depts work…</p>
<p>OP, I’m reminded of how one of the moms reacted one afternoon when different parents posted their child’s results from one particular highly selective EA school. For the acceptances, she wrote “congratulations! The adcoms were clearly very insightful!” For the rejections or deferrals, she wrote “Clearly, those adcoms didn’t know what they were doing!” Here’s to hoping that the adcoms reading your (or your child’s) applications are of the former type. :)</p>
<p>Or read the Tufts admissions blog. They actually blogged for the 2 days they were in committee on their ED applicants. One begins to realize that the quantity of gummy bears times the number of applicants from Chicago minus the temperature in the room may be a little too influential in some decisions.</p>
<p>Actually, it is also a small window into how an otherwise great applicant they all love can suddenly turn into a “no” when someone in the room notices a poor first quarter senior year gpa.</p>
<p>Nychomie, that arbitrariness is part of life. It’s the same thing when you interview for a job, and it’s the same thing when you meet people and form impressions. It all works out in the end. The alternative is to make it strictly numbers based, line all the apps up by SAT score and select the top x to fill the class. No thanks.</p>
<p>When you visit colleges, your impressions are equally arbitrary. As an example, I’ll give my alma mater. If you drive in from the south, you’ll think what a vibrant business downtown. If you drive in from the north, you’ll think what an affluent suburb with plenty of mansions. If you drive in from the west, you’ll think uh, sketchy neighborhood. That’s pretty arbitrary – as is how well you click with a tour guide or overnight host.</p>
<p>Admissions officers are professionals. As much as candidates would like to believe that an amazing essay will carry their average stats into the “accept” pile, or imagine that the reader has just had a bad day and therefore rejects them, it doesn’t work that way. At every selective school, there is a process and readers are trained to read applications in a systematic way.</p>
<p>Adcoms are human too, and make decisions based on impressions and feelings. Which is fine. It just continues to demonstrate the importance of essays, ECs and personal statements in making an applicant sound interesting.</p>
<p>If I were in those meetings, I’d be looking for every logical reason to quickly move applications to the “big” stack (rejections), so that I could focus my attention on which of the better candidates should be admitted.</p>
<p>People are fallible, and it does happen in all arenas. If Trent Green hadn’t been injured as late as he was in pre-season, 3x superbowl quarterback Kurt Warner would never have seen the field. The same is likely true for Tom Brady, since an injury to Drew Bledsoe was critical to getting him into the lineup.</p>
<p>If you’re one of the people making the decisions and you worry too much about making mistakes, you won’t be able to do your job. All you can do is ask yourself if you did your level best to identify the best candidates for your school, given its goals.</p>
This from the Tufts blog. They have an impossible job. They know it. You have to realize that life isn’t always fair, but things generally work out pretty well in the end.</p>
<p>My oldest son was deferred and denied from his favorite school, but the place he ended up is at least as good, perhaps better in his field. For various reasons I think it’s probably even a better fit, it just wasn’t on our radar at first because of its location. He’s a senior and already has a job offer for his dream job.</p>
<p>I think it’s also worth reminding folks that there are many, many colleges where you can pretty much tell (or even tell for sure) by your stats whether you will be admitted.</p>
<p>“the applicant’s fate could have been altered forever just like that?”</p>
<p>Their fate is altered forever in terms of what city they will live in, who their friends will be, etc.</p>
<p>But it’s not altered forever in any meaningful sense. The ones rejected from Harvard will go to Duke or Chicago; the ones rejected from Duke or Chicago will go to Wisconsin; they are still going to go to college and love their college and love their city and their friends. Most of them will look back and think “Wow, I almost missed out on this.”</p>