<p>I don’t think sunglasses is proposing that the college admissions system is perfect or infallible, but rather that the process admissions officers go through is backed by some rationale. In other words, conwoman, Yale or Princeton could have had a different rationale or need than Harvard for those applicants OR the applicant could have expressed him/herself better on the Harvard application than the Yale/Pton one.</p>
<p>I think another thing people here seem to be ignoring is the presentation aspect of college admissions. The admissions officers know you ONLY by what’s on your application/recs/interview report/transcript/etc. Someone might be better qualified, but if they can’t express their qualifications (ie poorly written essay, unexcited teacher recs), they aren’t going to get in.</p>
<p>What makes this all so confusing is that there are a few semi-quantifiable aspects to “the game” (SATs, and to a lesser extent gpa + ecs), and there are also so many qualitative aspects (character, personality, etc). It’s hard to judge one’s own qualitative attributes, and even harder to guess how they might appear to an admissions officer, but they undoubtedly have an effect on the admissions decision.</p>
<p>Oh, and someone, I’m a PSP semi-finalist… PM me if you want to talk about it.</p>