@lookingforward , those few weeks will also be a few weeks each for ED1 and ED2, which numbers are included in the total, so it’s more like maybe 2 months? Still, I agree it seems extreme.
They do not necessarily do it all the same way. For example, if USNWR#19 UCLA does holistic review in a way similar to the way UCB does it as described in the Hout report, the procedure is (in greatly simplified form) as follows:
- Each application is read and scored by two readers. If the scores are too different a third senior reader reads the application and rescores it.
- Within major/division, applications are ranked by the reading score averages, and a cutoff for admission is determined to produce the desired number of admits (presumably based on yield estimates). Obviously, those above the cutoff are admitted, while those below are rejected (or waitlisted).
- Tie-breaking procedures are used when a group of same reading score average applications straddles the cutoff.
Note that this procedure differs from the assumed procedure that everyone is writing about here in that:
A. All applications go past step 1 to step 2, rather than some being rejected at step 1.
B. Step 2 does not involve a central admissions committee rereading each application. Considering the number of applications that UCLA gets every year, and the number of applicants admitted from them, having a central admissions committee reread each application, even after aggressive winnowing, would not scale.
Of course, when leaving the top 20 of USNWR, many colleges will get significant differentiation among applicants by academic stats alone, so there is less need for them to use holistic reading to differentiate between applicants crammed up to the academic stat ceilings. So they may use point systems, and/or have automatic admission for high stat applicants, etc…
@ucbalumnus I’m curious more about the LAC model. Or the Ivies and how they work. The schools with 60k apps or more are in a league of their own when it comes to sheer number and how they have to read!
Auto admission is just not holistic.
My guess is top 40 or so scrutinize similarly enough. The 20-40 (in this example) have more to worry about yield than top 20. But it’s not as easy as stats. Nor as superficial as, “He’s super, won’t matriculate here.” The app/supp are key in showing you want that college, understand your match to what they embody, took the time to explore this college, etc. (More than visiting or an email list.)
NYU used to have some challenging very short answer questions, eg, to weed out kids confusing NYU with NYC, among other things.
For Harvard specifically, a significant amount of information about its admissions process has been revealed by the Blum/SFFA lawsuit: https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/massachusetts/madce/1:2014cv14176/165519/420
Basically:
- First reader assigns an overall score, and subscores for academic, extracurricular, athletic, personal, recommendations. May request additional review by docket chair. (docket is geographical area)
- Subcommittee (of 3-6 area representatives and docket chair) reviews applications to decide whether to send to the full committee.
- Full committee (of about 40) makes admission decisions from the finalists.
H has not revealed the whole story.
We all work in some form of business.
Yes we review every job application. And glance over all the relevant data.
You create two maybe three piles. One is possibly. Two worth keeping for something else and put in a file and three is simply not a good fit.
20 percent in pile one. 10 percent in pile two. 70 percent in pile three. Is my guesstimate based on the volumes.
You could go though hundreds fairly quickly with these quick reads.
The 20 percent get a lot more attention in the next round. And those are the ones sent to hiring managers to consider.
I’m sure it’s different at every school. The percentages vary.
But the law of numbers defines the reality. Only so many hours and so many sets of eyes available.
The first cut is basic. The next tounds get more thorough. And actual committee bicker and consensus decision are a fragment of the initial pile.
I am sure the AO was being honest about forwarding the info. But I guarantee that they were not giving you a heads up on where it stands. It would be more likely that is the standard response to all inquiries. They know better than to give out indications that could lead to a problem. Especially since it’s already out of their hands by now.
Reading the tea leaves and trying to detect hidden meanings is normal at this time for any concerned parent. No knock on that from me at all. But to answer your original question I don’t think the wording is anything but a polite response. And generic.
@privatebanker Maybe. But she didn’t have to respond at all. S19 sent that update to all schools and got standard response emails from “admissions”. This email was personal and said more than thank you. She wrote about other things specific to his app. It still doesn’t mean he will be admitted but I think that, if he had already been culled, she wouldn’t have responded and the update maybe wouldn’t have even been put in the file. I know that it was because we can also see that something was added the day after the email.
You maybe correct. I hope so and that she gets in if that is her goal. Fingers crossed for you.
@privatebanker I’ll report back. 
We try to read the tea leaves here too. Can drive you crazy. You can ask - was the correspondence from a seasoned admissions vet whose opinion/decisions are upheld, or was it from an eager newbie who has more empathy for anxious applicants and therefore writes back? But in either case it likely means nothing!
Regarding committee - definitely different schools have different processes. I just read an admissions blog from a lac, that says all apps go through committee.