<p>In mid Dec 2008, immediately after all the elite colleges announced their admission decision for the early applicants, a panel of college admission deans (Yale, Pomona, Lawrence, and UT-Austin) conversed with NYT about college admission. The dialogues, published on Dec 19 ( Q</a>. and A.: College Admissions - Questions/Answers Blog - NYTimes.com ), particularly the one that addressed the admission process and its fairness, are intriguing. </p>
<p>On process, Dean Brenzel of Yale said " It is not well understood that we are not aiming to pick out the best candidate in a particular school or from a particular area, as measured by some predetermined criteria. Rather, we are trying to assemble the most varied and most interesting class we can from an extremely diverse group of close to 25,000 outstanding applicants. We do not aim to compare a student primarily with other students from his or her school; we look instead for students who will bring something of particular value to the entering class. Second, few people seem to grasp the weight given to various aspects of the application, though this can vary considerably by institution. For us at Yale, for instance, standardized test scores generally do little to differentiate applicants, because virtually all our applicants score very well. Most important to us are the transcript and the school and teacher recommendations, which students can do little to influence once it comes time for an application. We also look closely to see where and how a student has developed talents or engaged the school or community outside the classroom. Essays and interviews round out an application, and we look here mostly to see whether they convey information that enlarges or enhances, while remaining consistent with what we hear from counselors and teachers. "</p>
<p>The other three panel-speakers seemed to agree with Dean Brenzel and, on fairness, illustrated that the admission process was like assembling an orchestra. ...</p>
<p>All sound logical, rational, and justifiable, until Kathleen Kingsbury of Time magazine published in her blog The Daily Beast on Jan 9, entitled The Dirty Secrets of College Admissions (Dirty</a> Secrets of College Admissions - The Daily Beast ), in which Ms. Kingsbury shared with readers what other admission officers had to say. What are revealed in Kingsbury's report is simply unbelievable. </p>
<p>On the arbitrary nature of admissions, one admission officer said, “...One year I had a student with a near-perfect SAT score and straight A’s. I’d originally put him in the submitted pile, but then we had to reduce the list. I reread his essays and frankly, they were just a little more boring than the other kids. So I cut him. Boring was the only justification that I needed and he was out..."</p>
<p>Joie Jager-Hyman, former admissions officer at Dartmouth College said, “....People tend to like people like themselves. I could almost predict the application files my colleagues would support: this admissions officer likes the athletes; this one prefers the quiet, creative loner type; one person cared a lot about SATs; or another would be more likely to excuse things like teenage arrests than other colleagues.”</p>
<p>With regard to fairness, an admissions officer of an Ivy League university said, “....Any admissions director who uses the line about needing an oboe player is lying. There’s no admissions person in the country with a clue what the student orchestra needs. More likely, Mommy and Daddy gave a $1 million donation. That oboe thing is just a PR ploy.”</p>
<p>And another officer said, "...One night, I got food poisoning at a restaurant in Buffalo. The next day, I rejected all the Buffalo applications." You would think that this officer was unique, psyche, lunatic, stupid, crazy, but listen to wahat another officer said and you realize that (s)he was not alone, "...I got sluggish in the afternoon after lunch, so maybe I wasn’t as scrupulous about a candidate as I would have been if I were fresh. Or even if my favorite sports team was in a slump, it affected who made the cut. If the [Pittsburgh] Steelers lost a game and I read your file the next morning, chances were you weren’t getting in. Where I could have been nice, I just didn’t go out of my way — I was a lot less charitable. Those are things that you, the applicant, have no control over. Which makes it all the more funny — the frenzy that parents and students work themselves into around getting in.” </p>
<p>Granted, because what were said is so unbelievable, one logically questions how credulous Ms. Kingsbury’s report is. But if one cannot believe a journalist who has covered business, health and education for Time Magazine since 2005, it is rather sad a situation for the journalism, isn't it? Who is more forthcoming, Dean Brenzel, Dean Poch, Dean Syverson, Dean Walker, or, Ms. Kingsbury’s interviewees?</p>