<p>I was wondering if anyone has an idea of how admissions committees at Brown work? I sorta have the stereotypical image in my head of a bunch of guys sitting around a table and talking about my essays but I don’t really have any clue of how Brown does it. Does anyone have insights into this? I know it’s probably a long shot to ask the College Confidential crowd but I’m just really curious as to how my application would be evaluated.</p>
<p>I’d suggest you read the book “The Gatekeepers” … it follows an admissions counselor through a year of admissions at Wesleyan.</p>
<p>This video explains it all in a ivy league:</p>
<p>[How</a> High Schoolers Imagine the College Admissions Process - YouTube](<a href=“How High Schoolers Imagine the College Admissions Process - YouTube”>How High Schoolers Imagine the College Admissions Process - YouTube)</p>
<p>Pretty accurate in IMHO</p>
<p>I just read Rachel Toor’s book. I think that’s a pretty good example.</p>
<p>Here’s Amherst. Quite similar to Brown I suppose</p>
<p>[Behind</a> The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst? : NPR](<a href=“Behind The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst? : NPR”>Behind The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst? : NPR)</p>
<p>T26E4 - Thank you for posting the link! Reconfirms the idea that there is no “sure thing” for ANY applicant when it comes to competitive colleges - you can’t plan to “earn” a place through excellent grades and test scores alone. The NPR piece really demonstrated the need to forge some kind of connection on a personal level with the ad coms. Great stuff.</p>
<p>Also, if you look at Tufts’ admissions blogs they are very good at, once a season or so, posting a play-by-play of committee which is interesting and fun to read.</p>
<p>lakehaus, Amherst does not do interviews. As a result, to forge some kind of a connection “on a personal level” with “ad coms” there is going to be quite difficult. Different with Brown since they strive to do interviews via alumni for all applicants.</p>
<p>I stand by my original comment. The NPR piece just illustrates something that I think has become common knowledge. Admission to highly competitive schools is more than a numbers game. Successful candidates have an application that resonates with the decision makers. The transcript of the piece is brief and I suppose it doesn’t say anything we didn’t already know. But at the same time, it does remind you that human beings (with emotions and flaws like everyone else) make these admission decisions.</p>
<p>here’s a quick excerpt</p>
<p>"SMITH: The committee buys it and the kid gets in. What’s surprising is how much is consensus and how much everyone relies on the vibe they get from the two initial readers. </p>
<p>Ms. NUEVES: Overall, a great young woman. Obviously a strong student, but I feel like I’m missing something. </p>
<p>Mr. PARKER: You know, to make it through, you’ve got to have genuine enthusiasm from the readers, and it wasn’t there. </p>
<p>SMITH: Just missing that je ne sais quoi. </p>
<p>Mr. PARKER: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And that’s the appropriate phrase, because you can’t quite name it. </p>
<p>SMITH: One committee member calls it the magic; another, the soul. We’re trying to separate the James Browns from the James Taylors, he says, and it’s a daunting task.</p>
<p>Reminds me of the best thing I heard when I was applying which was a Yale admissions officer saying “We could go through all the apps, construct a class, then throw out all those accepted apps and start all over and we’d end up with a class that’s just as good as the first one.”</p>
<p>^Minus the ED admits, LL invites and athletic recruits. The RD pool could provide a couple classes of admits that would be as good as the first one.</p>
<p>Found the NPR transcripts not surprising, but very disheartening.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/419701-collection-articles-inside-admissions-process-selective-lacs.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/419701-collection-articles-inside-admissions-process-selective-lacs.html</a>
Here’s a CC thread from 2007 with a collection of articles about the behind-the-scene of the admission process. </p>
<p>This one’s for UChicago
<a href=“scfun.net - scfun Resources and Information.”>scfun.net - scfun Resources and Information.;