I understand that many applicants are under consideration until the very end but I would imagine some applicants are clearly out of the running at an earlier stage. Why aren’t they informed once such determination is made, as it would allow them to move on?
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That’s a good question (hadn’t thought about it). They should let kids who don’t make it past the first cut (especially true at elite schools) know that they have been rejected. At schools where most kids get in (and, in reality, that is most schools) it isn’t as important, but I can definitely see the value in top 50s moving faster than they do.
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It seems that some LACs notify (rejected) international applicants earlier - that’s what prompted my post. I also know that some graduate schools do the same (or at least used to).
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Would definitely help international students, because we have to start a whole new process in our own countries now. It’s hard to be as invested, when you think you might not even need to, yet the portal has opened 2 weeks ago. Still worn out from the USA process.
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Apparently, colleges consider it “polite” not to reject the obvious rejects early. You can see it in that many colleges with ED/EA reject very few applicants in the early round, preferring to defer them, even though only a small percentage of deferred applicants are actual “borderline” applicants who may be admitted in the regular round.
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That’s interesting. I would love to see a line in the application where you can opt to be notified of a rejection once that decision has been made.
My D22 is fortunate to have a couple of good options in the UK and, as her remaining US schools are super reaches, I would love to know as soon as possible if she is no longer in the running. Yes, it would be a blow to her but at least she could start firming up her plans.
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Great idea @LostInTheShuffle! I hope we can spread this message somehow and who knows? Maybe colleges will adopt this idea in the future.
Meanwhile, best wishes to your daughter as she continues her college search journey.
As we are learning (for my D), it’s a marathon.
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Colleges don’t want to allocate their limited resources to applicants they’re going to reject. Only a small number of applicants whom the colleges really want to enroll get personalized attentions (likely letters or even personal calls). Graduate admissions are different because faculty admission committees pay much greater attention.
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So, notifying these applicants early and getting them out of the pool would benefit the admissions office right?
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It’d take time away from their focus on more likely admits.
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Thanks. Best of luck to your D as well!
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If that is the reason they don’t do it, it’s a pretty stupid one. I have listened to the Yale admissions podcast and there each application is reviewed by an AO, who will then code it. If the code is “non-competitive/reject” (or equivalent) and this is subsequently confirmed by the committee, an automatic notification can be sent to the rejected applicants via the portal. Tada, problem solved!
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Why couldn’t the person in admissions who handles the communications (typically thru the portal) just generate the denial notification? Seems easy.
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I don’t disagree. They should reexamine their processes. The number of applications aren’t going down for some of these schools.
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I agree they should do that for obvious rejects, but it may still require a committee meeting, rather than leaving the decisions to individual AOs.
Agreed, but many schools don’t have all apps go through committee…meaning an AO, or team of AOs (lots do the partner read thing), can deny an applicant.
For any given school, I don’t think this would be too difficult to implement, unless a committee is looking at/reviewing all applicants…I am not sure any highly rejectives do that, but maybe someone else knows.
If these colleges think this is a priority, they can certainly do it. But I just don’t think they view it as a priority.
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Yes, certainly not a priority for them - but it would be a nice courtesy to students. They’ll actually help, not hurt, applicants by letting them know as soon as possible (especially in EA/ED rounds) that they’re going to be rejected. It will allow those applicants to recalibrate and make adjustments to where they apply in the RD round.
Related to this, I am not a fan of “deferrals as soft rejects” by the T20s. I think most reasonable applicants know these schools are reaches and therefore they will likely not get accepted. A straight out rejection allows them to move on in the RD round instead of lingering in deferral limbo.
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ED is especially interesting. Presumably, if an ED applicant who applies for FA is going to be rejected, they’d let the FA office know so the FA office wouldn’t have to work on the applicant’s FA application.
Not all colleges use “deferrals as soft rejects”. MIT, for example.
I briefly considered the implications of the question raised in this thread.
The posters were wondering why the AO’s don’t implement a policy that only might benefit (and could just as easily offend) the most grossly unqualified applicants.
Isn’t the answer obvious?
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