The readers may be regionally assigned. They may have some rough distribution requirements in advance. 80 admits, gender balanced, 10 committee coin flips at least one from every state and an ethnic mix to include underserved communities at some minimum level.
If each sub group is diverse and geographically dispersed the total will be balanced as well
Not sure this is how it works. But it is how I would do it.
And when the AO says send to committee. I think it is simply how she refers to the broader organization. Not specifically the finalist committee. FWIW
She said “I put your email and updates into your file so that the committee will see them.” Boy, I need this to be over. I’m analyzing every word.
As I have said many many MANY times on this site, there are no tea leaves to be read. Your time is better spent binge watching Netflix.
@skieurope yeah yeah I know…I’m glad we aren’t filing for FA since people go nuts analyzing those portals and we have no info in S19’s.
What until you see the ones who go poking around looking for Easter eggs in the source code. 
@homerdog that is my understanding as it was laid out to us by the AO in a conference call with certain alums. Anecdotally, I have heard that some who make it to Committee are slam dunks for various reasons, while others are debated back and forth. The Regional AO is the advocate for each applicant they put up. On your post #16, I think this is a reason why highly selective schools try to admit a number that won’t fill the class accounting for historical yield. They can then use the waitlist to round the class to what they want in terms of makeup.
@BKSquared Thst would make sense in theory. But since almost no one is coming off of waitlists at the very selective schools, I don’t think they can use WL to round out a class anymore.
It has to be done regionally at some level and before any committee bicker.
@skieurope That was the big thing in the Rice applicant GroupMe for a bit! I was always too scared to check :-S
It comes up every single year (twice a year, for EA/ED and RD). I always bite my tongue to not say “Do you really think that a 17 y/o has figured out a hole that the professional IT guys, who started hacking into the NSA while in pre-K, has not thought of already (and closed)?!?” 8-}
@skieurope – Slightly off topic, but a few years back, my D was applying to our state’s STEM boarding/online high school for gifted kids and some smart young person DID crack the code!! The school had set up John.Doe18@xxxx.edu email accounts for all the accepted kids BEFORE decisions were released. A crafty applicant went to this public website where you can check to see if an email account exists for any domain. News spread like wildfire and the kids could go to that public site, type in their name (using the right format) and check to see if they had an email account and if they did they were in! I was skeptical at first, but, yep, it was accurate!
That didn’t happen again the next year!! (Fool me once. . . .)
@AlmostThere2018 @skieurope Yeah. I’ve also found other things to obsess about. A few of S19’s portals seem to have changed from portrait to landscape. I think it means a decision has been loaded because that happened with two other schools that sent him answers. I’m going to do everything I can today to step away! ha!
@homerdog, wishing you peace, (and a positive decision)!
@homerdog Portrait to Landscape, that is an amazing detail to notice. Ever thought of a career that rewards someone who can notice subtle changes? Professional poker player perhaps? 
@RockySoil Lol! I can’t wait to see what I’m going to do with all of this time once portal checking is over.
Well, @Homerdog it is time for your D21 to get serious about her college list!
Wanted to share this article which is an excerpt from a book written by a former Yale AO. Some of it’s dated, but I thought this info was particularly interesting:
300 in 120 minutes…24 seconds each app…that is crazy!
Here are the highlighted shortcuts in the article (I haven’t read the book)
https://nypost.com/2016/02/07/former-yale-admissions-officer-reveals-secrets-of-who-gets-in/
@homerdog - How in the world can you tell landscape versus portrait? You must really know what each portal looks like.
@momofmusician17 I don’t know. It’s pretty obvious. There used to be a long skinny list of what they’ve received with dates right to the right of each item. And I would have to scroll and scroll to get to the bottom. Now, the dates are way out to the right and the paragraph at the top is now only three lines because it’s been stretched. And I don’t have to scroll to see the entire portal.
@Mwfan1921 yeah well, that’s when I just throw my hands up and be super thankful that he’s in at William and Mary and Grinnell already. Not sure he’s get past that Yale-type scrutiny!
@homerdog - I guess I never paid that much attention to any of that when I checked the FA part of the portal.