A Plan to Kill High School Transcripts … and Transform College Admissions

exlibris97
Tue, 27 Jun 2017 13:16:32 +0000

@londondad You asked how universities I worked at distinguished between thousands of incredible candidates. The truth is that in most cases it was utterly subjective, if not random. Some cases were “easy”: candidates who won major, exceptionally competitive scholarships like Intel and Gates Millennium. Or composed a symphony that was performed by a major orchestra (this happened once). But in most cases the ‘admitted’ and the ‘rejected’ candidates were hardly discernible. I also found that what often happened is that Adcom’s looked for reasons NOT to admit a particular candidate.

And never forget the importance of the first reader. Their comments and ratings are critical. It’s luck of the draw if a candidate’s situation and essays resonate with the person(s) who read their file.