How Do Colleges Make Their Decisions? :Building the Freshman Class

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The admissions officers consider many factors—not just academic record and extracurricular activities—in their final decisions. Nan Keohane, former president of Duke University, offered the following candid explanation of the role that alumni and development concerns play in admissions decisions. Responding to a Wall Street Journal reporter on this topic, she wrote:

Every year, highly selective institutions like Duke admit many students who are less “qualified” than some of those we do not admit. Hundreds of high school valedictorians and students with perfect SAT scores have to be disappointed, in order for us to take other factors besides academic talent in the narrow sense into account. This may seem unfair to those who are turned down, but unfortunately a place like Duke has room only to accept a small fraction of the wonderfully talented students who would like to be here. . . . Every student must be able to succeed at Duke, in the judgment of the Admissions Office, but above that threshold—a demanding threshold, to be sure—many different factors come into play. We are committed to ethnic, racial, cultural, socioeconomic, and geographic diversity, to becoming more international, giving particular support to students from North and South Carolina (by reason of our founding indenture and our commitment to our region), admitting students with a range of probable academic commitments, succeeding in athletics, making sure that our drama and music and arts programs have students who will continue and enjoy their traditions, and more. Alumni and development concerns are just one part of this mix.

I applied early to Yale and was rejected. I had great grades, high SATs, lots of ECs, blah, blah, blah. Everyone thought I was a shoo-in—my parents, my teachers, my relatives, my friends. Then I was rejected. Just plain rejected. I was bummed out for a few days but got over it. But my mom couldn’t understand how this could happen. She sent a nice e-mail to the admissions office asking for reasons. This is what they wrote back: I'm not sure this made her feel any better.

Realize the personalities on Yale’s committee are distinctive to Yale, as are the personalities on admission committees at other schools. And even within a given school, there are sometimes multiple committees that have different constellations of personalities presiding and voting as they see fit. Also within a single committee, three people may like an essay, recommendation, extracurricular activity, etc., but four or even three others on the committee may feel very differently. Such a divided sensibility would result in an unfavorable outcome. Frequently committee members do not agree, which leads to some tough arguments and split votes. This does not mean that the applicant is not extraordinary; it just means that not enough people voted favorably. -  High school senior 

Having my older sister go ahead of me helped me understand how random college admissions can be. She didn’t get into Yale or Princeton. So I’m kind of ready to accept whatever happens. - College applicant whose sister attends Harvard

The Outcome Can Be Unpredictable

Parents and students need to realize how complex and fundamentally messy college admissions decisions at selective colleges can be. The purpose of sharing this information is not to discourage you but to help you approach college admissions with the right mind-set and to encourage you to develop a list of good-fit colleges that includes some where your admission is assured.