imagine all those students who got the thumbs down because the admissions counselors needed a short cut to speed up the process. (reject this entire high school, this page of names or this entire state)
http://nypost.com/2016/02/07/former-yale-admissions-officer-reveals-secrets-of-who-gets-in/
while very nicely written and a fun read(IMO) it furthers my point about hyper competitive kids and all the stress they put on themselves for no reason! you may get rejected just because you are on a random list that needs to be reviewed and there is no time.
all the grades polished essays and extra volunteering mean zero.
“‘Once the children of alumni, recruited athletes, underrepresented minorities or regions and students interested in underenrolled majors were considered, there wasn’t much room for your generic genius.’”
great quote.
So being a ‘phantom serial farter’ is a good thing, compared to generic academic achievement.
sorghum—who knew!
sounds like a slogan for a t shirt!
I thought the school or state was deleted only if each of the applicants on that particular list were not qualified. I don’t think he meant that they were arbitrarily deleted. Deleting the whole page just meant they didn’t have to go through deleting each one individually but I got the impression that each individual was deemed a reject.
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@sorghum “So being a ‘phantom serial farter’ is a good thing, compared to generic academic achievement.”
I knew I should have applied to Yale!
Now they are probably going to get 1,000 farting essays next year! lol
You said “fart” and"Yale" in the same post so…
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/470497-clam-fart-oh-my-god-what-did-i-do.html
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Sounds like we should go extremely long on beans and other foods well known for producing flatulence while shorting Beano and other anti-flatulence medications. 
There’s a useful nugget for the Yale striver. A mutable tip.
I think the respective outcomes for Ms. Phantom Serial Farter and Emmanuela Gutierrez is as illustrative as anything of the modern admissions process in all its absurdity.
@OHMomof2 Considering colleges now look for a demonstrated passion - and, I would imagine, mistrust the claim that an applicant with STEM-focused extracurriculars and classes is most interested in studying Old Norse - I don’t think this’ll help too many students. One would have to send an application similar to the above, which has questionable benefits, or plan out ECs and awards in a field they aren’t particularly fond of starting in middle school, which I personally would loathe doing.
I’m sure there’ll be some rising freshmen who discover a passion for Assyrian literature when they read about the underenrolled major boost, but I don’t know that many people will embrace a subject they dislike for four years in order to get into any given college.
False advertising. I didn’t laugh once?
The clam fart thread is a classic! I never laughed so hard as when I read that years ago.
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Lol when I read “fart” and “Yale” in the same sentence the first thing that came to my mind was the clam fart thread. If nobody else put a link to it then I was going to :))
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Not “haha” funny, more absurdist humor. I loved the writing style, and he definitely has insider knowledge that should be sobering to anyone who thinks fair, logical, and college admissions belongs in the same sentence.
Please understand this guy spend 20+ years in fundraising (not for Yale,) his experience in admissions predates that.
This is the takeaway quote for today: “It’s very easy to throw the prize at the kids who finish the race first, but always look at the incline they faced. That will tell you much more.”