How the Application-Evaluation Process Actually Works

[CC_Torrey]

It’s a comprehensive process – but there’s usually at least some element of luck involved. https://insights.collegeconfidential.com/how-does-the-application-evaluation-process-actually-work

[ucbalumnus]

From the linked page:

@Sally_Rubenstone

There is no one universal way that admission staff approach the complex application-evaluation process. So any book or article that suggests otherwise should be eyed with skepticism. However, at most institutions, each application (which means all associated materials, of course, and not just the application itself) will be read by a “regional rep" (this is the staff member assigned to oversee applications from a specific geographic area) plus at least one other staff member who reads randomly (meaning that this person is seeing applications from throughout the pool).

Does “most institutions” mean most overall, or most of those which these forums focus on (private residential colleges on the upper range of admission selectivity using holistic admissions reading)? It is hard to believe that this method is applicable to a majority of colleges overall including open admission community colleges, regional (or sometimes flagship) state schools that admit most or all of their students by a GPA/rank/test-scores formula, less selective private colleges which get most applicants and matriculants from their local region (so regional division would not make sense), etc…

[MWolf]

There was one subjective factor which is not mentioned, but is almost certainly important, which is the high school that the applicant attended. Even simply looking at my kid’s Naviance revealed that some schools accepted students from my kid’s HS at a much higher than average rate, while others, which were no more selective, consistently accepted students at a far lower than average rate. Moreover, there was a strong geographical factor here. The majority of the colleges with a higher acceptance rate for the high school were in the Midwest (the HS in in Chicagoland), and, the farther a college was, the more likely it was to have a lower than average acceptance rate.

This was true both for private and OOS public schools.

My question is: where does this usually kick in? Is it based on the relationships that a regional rep has with the high school, or whether the people higher up the chain need to be familiar with a high school and have a positive opinion of it?

[ucbalumnus]

Re: #2

For public universities, there is often an explicit admission preference for in-state applicants. Some (e.g. many CSUs in California) have explicit local area admission preferences as well. Note that these preferences do not have to be subjectively determined, and often are not.