<p>To that end, your fate is also altered by the randomness of what dorm you are assigned to, who your classmates are, etc. I wouldn’t have ever gotten to know my spouse, for example, if I hadn’t been assigned to eat my meals in a dorm where he was the RA. It’s neither good nor bad - that’s just how life works. I would have found someone else and there you have it!</p>
<p>And sometimes (maybe most times) the admissions counselors make the right call. D was rejected from her #1 choice, a reach school. Looking back 3 years later, she says that the admissions officer knew what they were doing. She says it would not have been the right choice for her. So it isn’t always abritrary. We parents, of course, all think our unique and delicate snowflakes should be accepted. But we don’t always have the most unbiased view, either :)</p>
<p>inparent, I think with the most selective schools there really is no such thing as a “right call” in many (maybe most) cases. When admissions officers themselves say they could fill the slots many times over with kids they are confident could do the work and would be a great fit, well, that leaves a lot of kids out. So they do the best they can and everyone moves on. </p>
<p>It’s like the colleges that kids are admitted to and turned down. It’s human nature to want to believe you made the right choice and to see things that way (& thank goodness for that) but the fact is that most kids would have done equally well at any number of colleges.</p>
<p>Admissions could really be streamlined by using the following formula:</p>
<p>Assume a college with an acceptance rate of 20%.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>First step would be a quick read through of applicants- filter out the bottom 50% of applicants, and immediately accept the top 5%.</p></li>
<li><p>Take the remaining 45% and pass them through a random number generator to decide which 1/3rd of that group to accept.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Variations of the above methodology could be used to take into account financial or other considerations.</p>
<p>And letting people know up front that there was a huge element of randomness in the process would make them feel a bit better about being rejected. And less cocky about being accepted. </p>
<p>Admissions officers add value to the process of selecting a class about as much as mutual fund managers add value to portfolios by picking stocks. In other words, they don’t add much value.</p>
<p>^If only we knew what the criteria for determining the top 5% and bottom 50% of applicants is, we would all probably save a lot of money and aggravation.</p>
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<p>You know what’s really arbitrary? Being born. Imagine what your life would be like if you had been born in a refugee camp in Somalia, or had been born into a family of wealthy oil tycoons, or had been born with Huntington’s disease or with some kind of savant issue? What if your parents were prominent classical pianists or homicidal gunmen working for the Russian Mafiya? Your life might have ended up completely different!</p>
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<p>And, if the adcom is for a particular region (or State), going to the college night or HS visit that adcom makes is a great way for the student to put a face on that application. Especially if the applicant really knows something aout the school and can let the knowledge and interest shine through.</p>
<p>If you look at the number of applications a college gets and then count how many adcoms they have, you get some idea how much scrutiny any individual app is going to get. A certain percentage are just going to be rejected by stats alone unless there is something that puts them into a special category. Another group will be accepted. The rest usually go through a rating procedure with two adcoms separately rating the app and the ones where there are disparate ratings go to committee. When you see or read about the admissions officers discussing applicants and making a decision, those are the tiny minority that did not make it through the automatic filters.</p>
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<p>I’d read The Gatekeepers by Jacques Steinberg about an admissions season at Wesleyan. It opened my eyes to the college admissions process!</p>
<p>that was a great read ellemenope.</p>
<p>I know–it read like a John Grisham novel without anyone dying…</p>
<p>We parents identify with our own student and their dreams (and dream schools), and vicariously with all the other students going through this opaque process. However, selective college adcoms sitting in their offices, sorting through thousands of applicants, have their college’s agenda as their top priority. For them, the dream is putting together the perfect elements (students) to make up a diverse, intelligent, motivated, socially active and vibrant class (more or less–depends on institutional goals). I’ve found it remarkable to hear admissions officers speak of selecting a class. They do not suffer over those kids they reject (even the ones who come “so close” but not enough spaces are open for another kid with their major/interests/geographic locale). They seem confident such good students will find a very good home at some other school. I guess they must think this way–to allow themselves some distance from the fates they are handing out. So, arbitrary or not, I doubt these guys are losing a lot of sleep over their decisions. OTOH, I know a bunch of parents who have spent a few too many sleepless night.</p>
<p>What balances the scale comes in April, when the admissions decisions are out, many students have several acceptances and suddenly it is the kid’s choice after all.</p>
<p>The decisions are never arbitrary. And this is because they are not selecting individuals, but building a class that meets institutional needs. It only seems that way if you are an individual. But that’s not the way admissions officers have to think. (And when they turn down a perfectly adequate candidate, they are pretty much sure that she’ll get a good education elsewhere.)</p>
<p>Mini, I don’t think most of them think a moment past getting their class together. Nice sentiments that they know someone they turned down will do fine else where, but it does not always happen.</p>
<p>I happens about 95% of the time, and it isn’t something they are paid to worry about, and they shouldn’t. There’s hundreds and hundreds of fine colleges out there. They don’t lose any sleep over it, and why should they?</p>
<p>Doinschool: Private Schools are, for the most part, NOT FOR PROFIT. That is not to say that they do not try to maximize revenue, but they are not FOR PROFIT, according to the IRS.</p>
<p>Except for by far the largest university in America - the University of Phoenix (with an undergraduate population larger than all the Ivies combined, and then some.)</p>
<p>I’m with Mini and would go on to say 99% end up somewhere else just fine as long as they get over it… And some that do get what they thought they “wanted” find it not so perfect.</p>
<p>One of the things that gives rise to the feelings of the OP (beyond simple human nature) is the pandering that high schools engage in. Every group meeting we had with administrators emphasized how terrific our kids were, and how they were all stars, and how our district and area was superior to so many others that just didn’t “have it”, or worse, had intractable socio economic problems.</p>
<p>I always told my children that what was coming in the admissions process was different from the ‘you are all so wonderful’ message. In admissions at the elite schools, the speech is basically the guy standing in front of the group and pointing to maybe one, two, or three kids saying…“all right, you, you, and you come with me. The rest of you guys…good luck.” Some parents and students get this. The others are taken in by the message of the schools.</p>
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<p>I agree with mini. They’re being paid to assemble the best class they can for College X. They aren’t being paid to worry about the fortunes of every kid who sends in an app. They know that there are more than enough good colleges out there. If anything, I would think it would only come up if you have an extremely disadvantaged kid out there and you know that your spot could really “elevate” his life (for lack of a better word). The average middle to upper middle class kid? Eh, if we don’t admit him here, he’ll get into a fine school somewhere else and it’s all good.</p>