How Do Colleges Make Their Decisions? Tentative Decisions

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Once a reader or an admissions officer completes the ratings and notes for a given applicant, it is decision-time to declare the applicant’s status: admit, deny, wait-list, or perhaps something less definitive such as admit-minus or deny-plus. On some campuses, the decision can be the equivalent of admit, deny, or further review. (Stanford calls this latter group “swims,” as if they are treading water before a final review.) This call can be a very difficult, subjective one. In reality, most applicants to selective colleges can succeed—that is, do well enough to be able to graduate within four years. Who, then, should be given that opportunity?

At this point, the full range of a college’s priorities plays out, along with the personal preferences and inclinations of the readers. Colleges are complex academic communities that seek to create a rich, stimulating environment academically, culturally, athletically, and socially. This means crafting a class that includes not only academic superstars but winning athletes, talented performers and musicians, students from all parts of the country and a diverse array of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, the children of alumni, as well as some whose parents are willing and able to make exceptionally generous donations. These categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but realistically, few, if any, students can excel in everything. Thus decisions are made about individual students so that the class as a whole embodies the priorities of the campus. Here the hooks come into play. With lots of applicants to choose from with similar grades and test scores, schools have a lot of leeway in exactly which students to accept. Institutional priorities can play a big role in the outcome.

Clear-Cut?

Sometimes, though, the decision is clear-cut. Some applicants are so outstanding in dimensions important to the college that the decision is obvious to both reviewers of a file: admit. Sometimes a file may be so outstanding that it is sent right to the dean with a recommendation to admit after being read by only one experienced admissions officer. Colleges that compute a rating total may automatically admit students who score at or above a very high threshold without further review.

Similarly, at the other end of the continuum, files are prescreened to identify applicants who fall far short of a college’s standards. Identifying these before they are thoroughly read can help readers save their time for the stronger files that require careful consideration. These decisions can be made on the basis of grades, test scores, or some other easily detected major weakness, relative to the rest of the pool, that cannot be offset by other factors. It may sound harsh to learn that some files get a decision after only five minutes of evaluation, but that can be the case. The number of applications is usually too large for every file to receive the same level of analysis. 

The New York Times ran an article yesterday about a Web site that provides kids with the probability of being accepted at eighty elite colleges for a $79.95 fee. I want the admissions staffsat those eighty elite colleges to be aware that there are computer programs out there that know just how and what you think. Before you start your discussions, you may want to make sure the room is not buggedin a clandestine effort to further enhance the prediction software. - Skeptical high school counselor

Sometimes a file is forwarded for review, and after careful consideration both readers independently recommend denial. At highly competitive colleges with many more applicants than spots in the freshman class, this is often the fate of applicants who do not distinguish themselves in some way, even if their grades and scores are competitive. Here, too, this can be the end of the decision process or, depending on the college, the dean may review the file briefly to confirm the decision made by others. Colleges using ratings totals may also establish a threshold at the low end—students who score below the threshold will be denied without further review.