Gift article
Interesting, thanks. Of course, easier to do with under 12k applications, but with 4 people for that other schools could scale that up I’d think? (Sounds like the kind of seasonal semi-retirement job I’d be interested in 
) I do like their method of interviewing students about projects they claim to have done, where they point out it’s not only to potentially catch people out but could end up really impressing the admissions team as well.
I liked this bit too:
Admissions officers described numerous times where a seemingly far-fetched application proved true, and awed them.
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I read this article earlier today and have a few thoughts:
- This is more checking than some companies do when they hire one person
- Schools could scale this, but I would guess most schools don’t care to this degree (IMO)
- I expect the international apps have relatively more ‘integrity’ issues
I know I have posted this elsewhere, but at the (low admit rate) school where I work a significant proportion of a senior admissions person’s time is spent sorting thru potential integrity issues…parents/classmates calling to say an applicant lied about X, checking certain ECs, etc. Admissions people/app readers also have the latitude to spend time looking up an award, a publication, etc and would send that on if they can’t verify.
Lastly, I found these sentences confounding:
Many schools review applications for accuracy but tend to dig deeper only when something seems off, such as if a student’s essay mentions an award-winning robotics team but the recommendation letters don’t.
This is quite problematic from an access perspective and from a pragmatic viewpoint. First, not every applicant has ‘good’ LoRs, this is why some schools don’t even require LoRs anymore…it’s an access issue. Many apps have a counselor statement saying something like ‘Due to high caseload, I will not be sending an evaluation for this student.’
Second, teacher/counselor LoRs often don’t touch upon activities, in fact some teachers/counselors specifically believe they should not talk about activities because there is that guidance out there.
IME, some LoRs include activity info and those are weighted towards private and relatively affluent public HSs, many (even good ones) don’t include a full reporting of the student’s activities, some don’t include any activity info at all.
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For well-endowed schools, I think this is a worthwhile endeavor and hope that they will follow Caltech’s lead on this.
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OMG me too! I would LOVE this.
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Me three!
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Furthermore, the “quality” of the LoR may reflect income and the resources that the applicant’s high school has. The Chetty 2025 article points out that kids from high schools that mostly serve the wealthiest families (especially the private high schools) get far better LoRs than kids from high schools which serve low or mid income families.
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Me 4/