How Admission Decisions Are Made: Making the Final Cut Chanhassen MN

How Admission Decisions Are Made: Making the Final Cut

Oh…to be a fly on the wall when the admission committee is meeting. What do you think you might hear?

“3, 5, 8, 6, 9” 
The first thing you might hear is the rating each committee member gives your application. If there’s not a consensus, the next thing you might hear is the sound of bickering. Oh, your aching little fly ears! ""Look how well she plays the harp!"" one man calls out over the protests of the woman pointing out your 390 math SAT score.

NOT! At colleges that accept just about anyone, there probably isn’t a committee — perhaps just a secretary with a rubber “Admit” stamp. However, at the most competitive colleges, your application won’t even be discussed in committee unless you’re firing on all cylinders, meaning excellent grades and scores are a given. What then?

Patricia Wei, of Yale University, explains: ""In committee, we say, ‘This is a good student. Now what is special?’ A lot of times we call an applicant ‘solid.’ It translates into ‘fine, but nothing distinctive.’ At other colleges where I’ve worked, ‘solid’ meant admissible, but here it’s the kiss of death.""

A peek at the process
The goal of the admission committee is to assign an overall rating that every member can live with. Committees often give numerical or letter grades rather than voting ”In” or “Out”, “Accept” or “Reject.” For example, if an A to F scale is used, committee members realize that A an...

Author: Amy Ambler

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