How Do Colleges Make Their Decisions? : What Happens to Your File?

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Thousands upon thousands of pieces of correspondence descend upon college admissions offices right around application deadlines—the applications themselves, letters of recommendation from teachers, and transcripts and counselor recommendations. All of it has to be opened, date stamped, and sorted into applicants’ files. The physical task of doing this is staggering and very time-consuming. Despite the definite trend toward online applications and even online review, the process is still paper-intensive. Some colleges that accept online applications still print them out before they are read, so that adds to the deluge of paper as well. But once a file is complete, with all parts accounted for, it is ready for review.

At a typical college, especially a selective one, an application file may be read twice, and sometimes more than that, depending on the file itself. Of the two people who review a file, one is frequently the admissions officer assigned to the part of the country where an applicant attends school. This same officer may have visited an applicant’s high school early in the fall to meet students and the school counselor and may also have conducted a formal regional presentation for parents and students at a hotel in a nearby city. The other evaluator is often randomly selected from among the remaining admissions officers or readers. Sometimes both evaluators are randomly selected. Many colleges also have an admissions officer assigned the task of recruiting applicants from one or more minority groups. The appropriate officer may read the file of students of color as a third reader. A few colleges (for example, Cal Tech and the University of Michigan) actively involve faculty members in the routine review of files, but many more use faculty as occasional evaluators of special talents—mathematical, musical, and so forth—where a professional assessment is needed.

Reading

Each of the two people assigned to a given file reads it thoroughly. The first person to read a file is usually responsible for extracting key information and entering it into an electronic file or on a summary card. Grades, class rank, SAT or ACT scores, notations about curriculum, codes for extracurricular activities—all get entered for an at-a-glance view of the file in objective terms. Other factors are noted as well—any special interest in the applicant by coaches or the development office, minority background, exceptional talents, and so forth.

Both readers then write summary comments about the candidate’s essay (or essays), letters of recommendation, and personal qualities that convey a sense of the student beyond a list of grades and activities. The first reader, whether an admissions officer or part-time reader, will usually make more detailed notes than the second. Those notes are then generally read out loud if the file finds its way to committee discussion. A simple application might take only ten to fifteen minutes to read and work up. A complex file could take thirty minutes to digest fully. Admissions staff typically have to read twenty-five to thirty files a day during peak reading season, which normally runs from early January through mid-March. Long days and weeks are the norm for admissions staff once reading begins. On many campuses an admissions officer may read a thousand files or more over the application cycle.