<p>I heard somewhere that having your counselor call into the admissions office to personally vouch for you/ make sure you have a fair shot will increase chances of admission? I also have a friend attempting to make connections with professors to get a better chance. Do either of these work? Are these rumors true?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>No – then why doesn’t C get 20,000 counselor telephone calls? </p>
<p>and NO, Profs are not part of the admissions committee – your friends are just annoying them. Frankly, tell them to stop.</p>
<p>Probably hurts your chances – “Oh, this is the applicant who lacks judgment.”</p>
<p>A slightly different but related question: is a Professor’s reaching out to the regional adcom on behalf of an applicant viewed positively, neutrally, or negatively?</p>
<p>EdIted</p>
<p>^^ I don’t know how it viewed at Columbia, but at the elite schools I am familiar with in most cases it means nothing (which means it is neither positive nor negative). Unless there is a very strong working relationship between the professor and the applicant, adcoms will just treat it as just another generic endorsement of the student. Also, a handful of professors will usually have more clout than the rest of pack in these matters. But to repeat, a rec from a professor is usually neutral to an ever-so-slight positive.</p>
<p>Thank you Falcon. The professor knows of the applicant’s work, and volunteered. He has name-recognition in his field, so on balance, I think we’ll regard it as a modest positive, which is what we are hoping for. Applicant has all of the positives that are expected at elite schools, but shares that with the thousands for whom there isn’t room, so even a “mild tie breaker” would be wonderful.</p>
<p>Thank you for your insight. I just wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be regarded as over-reaching.</p>
<p>Well, if the applicant is indeed a very strong candidate and they are thinking about admitting him/her, then I would imagine an additional good word from one of their own could only help - despite what I’ve been told. I’ve found that everyone suffers from a heuristic called confirmation bias whether they know it or not.</p>
<p>Good luck!!</p>
<p>another question-my friend claims to have an uncle who works in columbia admissions. we go to the same high school. how will that effect either of our applications? does it really have that large of an impact? thanks!</p>
<p>If your friend applies, I would expect the uncle to quietly recuse himself. If you apply, I can’t imagine it would have any effect. in either direction.</p>