The Reading Process
Before we embark on the step-by-step process of evaluating applications, let me reveal how files get to be files in the first place, and then how they are divided up in most Ivy League offices. Let's trace the mysterious journey a folder takes from the applicant's house to the admissions officer's hands.
Once the applicant finally finishes his part of the application (form 1, usually mailed a few months earlier, and later, form 2), he usually panics because the deadline is nearing, and he pays an exorbitant amount to send the material via overnight delivery. Most people assume that there is a band of mail receivers waiting on January second for all mail to arrive so they can sort it out and divide it up immediately. If you stop to think about it, most schools get over ten thousand applicants a year. The applicant sends in forms 1 and 2, the high school sends in form 3, two different teachers mail in their recommendations under separate cover, and sometimes a peer sends in the peer recommendation. To add to all this, some students will also have alumni interviews mailed separately. Thus, for every applicant, between four and six different pieces of mail must be opened, stamped with the date, sorted alphabetically, and put into folders—roughly fifty to sixty thousand separate pieces of mail.
Most offices have only around ten or so people who do all this work, so it takes weeks, not a day, to open and sort the mail. In all likelihood, your FedEx package will be sitting in a huge bucket in a mailroom for at least two weeks, so it is never necessary to send anything overnight mail. The truth is, admissions offices cannot even tell if you mailed in your material late, as long as you were within one or two weeks of the deadline. Schools want their total number of applications to be as high as possible so they will appear to be more selective. As a consequence, many will accept applications received as late as March!
Here is a step-by-step list of how a folder gets put together:
1. Buckets of mail are delivered each day to the admissions office by the post office and other mail carriers.
2. Secretaries, systems workers, and sometimes the officers themselves sit around big tables, open the mail, stamp it with the date, and sort it in alphabetical order.
3. These alphabetized piles are delivered to systems technicians, each of whom is responsible for a certain section of the alphabet. In between hours of opening mail, they would spend a few hours each day processing and filing paperwork, sometimes entering the data into the computer system. This process takes over a month.
4. Once the bulk of the mail is opened, systems technicians work full-time to collect all the information about each applicant and place it in an individual folder. They go through each form 3 and calculate a CRS for every single student, following the rules set out in the Ivy League Blue Book.
5. Once the appropriate information is input into the computer (standardized testing and CRS calculations), an AI is calculated in those Ivies that use this measure.
6. At each school, as much statistical information as possible is printed out—at Dartmouth, it is produced on what is called a “master card,” which contains many vital statistics for each applicant.
7. Finally, at least two or three weeks after the mail started coming in, complete folders are produced, with the master card on top of the folder. As these folders are completed, they are sent to the appropriate regional officer for a first reading. After that officer has completed the read, the folder is sent back to systems, where it sits for a few weeks waiting for new information and is then updated and sent back for a second read.
The world is divided up into regions that each admissions officer covers. As I have mentioned, while I was at Dartmouth, my regions included Westchester and Rockland counties in New York, and the states of Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Michigan, plus the People's Republic of China. In Ivy League offices, officers generally travel from four to six weeks every fall to visit their regions. These visits include travel to high schools, evening presentations, and meetings with local alumni of the college. The purpose of this travel is twofold: for the officer to get acquainted with as many high schools as possible and to spread the word about the college to people who might be less familiar with it. School visits are generally quite short—officers typically visit four or five high schools during the day. Later that day, they do a public presentation for parents and students, during which they give a longer version of the short presentations done in each high school.
Typically, high schools will post a sign for each visit so interested students can meet with an officer for twenty or thirty minutes, hear a brief presentation, get on the mailing list, and ask questions about the college. As an added benefit, especially if the group is small, the officer might really get a chance to talk to students. If impressed by a particular student, officers would usually write his name down so that months later when they read the file, they would remember who the student was. The general (and understandable) public perception is that this contact is very important, but I would disagree. The truth is that officers meet too many people too quickly on the road to record a lasting and meaningful impression. Imagine a two-week trip where you visit four to five high schools Monday to Friday and drive to three major cities. When people come up to you at an evening presentation attended by eighty people, introduce themselves, and ask a few questions, you are unlikely to remember talking to them at all. In addition, many of these students will not ultimately become applicants, so even if you did remember them, the information would not be particularly helpful.
During their brief stay at a high school, officers usually make contact with the guidance counselor, request a high school profile so they can gather information about the high school, and record their impressions of the visit in a folder they keep during travel season. Sometimes it is possible to learn interesting things that would not be immediately obvious by just reading about a high school in the profile. Students might tell you that because of double periods, the high school allows only a maximum of three AP classes. Oftentimes, the students volunteer helpful facts, such as, “Even though Mr. Nespoli's class isn't an Advanced Placement class, he is considered the hardest teacher in the high school and only the top kids take his class.” This is the kind of comment officers would record so that when they eventually came across an applicant from that high school, they would give the student credit for taking a difficult course, even if it was not marked “AP” on the transcript.
Students might also tell you that in a given year they will have twenty-one valedictorians in the class, since the high school policy is to assign a number-one rank to anyone with over a 4.0 weighted GPA. As I mentioned before, this is not a helpful policy as far as colleges are concerned, because once officers find out how many number ones there are in a high school, they knock down the AI and look even more closely at such things as test scores and teacher recommendations. In other words, it usually works against the students, not for them.
My personal opinion is that high school visits are largely a waste of time and resources. With the exception of visits to less affluent or high-minority-concentration areas, the high school visit is becoming obsolete. It costs thousands of dollars for each admissions person to travel (airfare, hotels, gas, rental car, three meals a day), when actually many people can take advantage of all the information available about a college through books, the Internet, or a campus visit. The visits I do find extremely meaningful are those to inner-city or poor areas, where the applicants do not have the money or resources to visit or to use high-tech computer software to gather information. Many of them only consider applying once they get on the mailing list after a visit and receive literature about the college.
Regional officer visits do more to make alumni (they feel neglected if you do not visit their region, somehow assuming that if you don't visit, you won't take anyone from their area) and college counselors happy. Certain private high schools feel snubbed if they are not visited every year, even though their students are more than familiar with most highly selective colleges. In an ideal world, I'd say high school visits do influence the students, but practically speaking, it becomes almost a personality contest among admissions people.
Many times students have said to me, “You were so much better than the Harvard officer” (and a significant part of that was because I am young and used to teaching students that age and thus have an easier time relating to them). While flattering, it pains me to think that students would choose one college over another based on the affability of the admissions person; it is even worse when you remember that that person is probably not even a graduate of that particular college, and even if he is an alumnus, the sales ability of that person is not necessarily indicative of the strength of the academic program at the college. For these reasons, I think resources would be better spent doing much less travel and instead targeting less affluent areas and doing evening programs (rather than individual high school visits) both at public libraries and local churches or synagogues.
Once officers return from their travels, they have about a week before files for early decision come rolling in. By the time admissions officers get to see your folder, much of the personal data is recorded on a computer printout called a master card. All students have a master card (of course, each office has its own analogue for this summary of major information) in their file that summarizes all the numbers-oriented data: all testing, address, high school and Social Security number, legacy status, parents’ occupations, rank in class (or GPA), languages other than English spoken at home, strength of course load, and so on. Behind each master card is a blank sheet of lined paper called a “ready sheet” (these terms probably vary for each Ivy League office, but the process is essentially the same), where the readers summarize the contents of your folder in a write-up of approximately half a page. On this sheet and on the front of the master card, the reader would enter both an academic and personal ranking as a fraction, academic over personal/extracurricular. A 6/5 rating would mean the student was an academic 6 and a personal/extracurricular 5.*
How does reading the folder work? Once a folder has been completed (which means that most, but not all, of the information is in—one missing recommendation would not hold up the reading, since after the first person reads it, it goes back down to the systems area to get updated), it makes its way up into the regional person's file drawer. When officers pick up their daily quota of from twenty-five to thirty folders, the folders are all mixed up, so they would never sit down and read all the folders from one high school. Since the regular-decision reading process drags out over months, it would be impossible to remember all the different applicants. So when parents ask, “Are students from our high school compared directly to one another?” the answer is no—they are read against the standard of the region first, then the whole country.
The regional readers on the admissions staff would be the first evaluators. They are expected to be familiar with the high schools, so if they have anything to add that would help the next readers, they would add it on the ready sheet in their write-up—for example, “The guidance counselor told me that this year's class is the strongest they've had in years,” or “This high school has strict grading policies, so an 88 percent average is actually very close to the top.” Even if regional readers did not know the high school very well, they would spend time reading the high school profile to decipher how a student stacked up against the rest of the class. As they read, they would summarize certain data (such as a list of extracurricular activities and parents’ occupations) onto the master card and would take notes for about half a page on the ready sheet. Finally, after thinking about the whole folder, they would assign both an academic and personal/extracurricular ranking and then take all the folders back to the systems people, who would keep them for about a week to update them. In fact, folders usually stay with the systems people for several weeks because it takes quite a while to finish all the first readings.
There is one exception to this procedure. If the regional reader is amazed by how strong a student is (typically an academic 8 or 9), he might recommend what is sometimes called a “one-reader A” (meaning that it will take only one reader to determine that this person is a winner and therefore an acceptance) and put this folder directly into the director of admissions’ file drawer. Then the director would read the folder to see if he agreed. The director has the option of writing a green A on the folder (just what it sounds like—he takes his special green pen and writes the final decision) and sending it to systems, where it will sit until final letters go out, or deciding that the regional reader was too optimistic and sending it along for a second read. In total, roughly 5 to 7 percent of all applicants in a given year would fall into the “one-reader A” category.
Conversely, if a folder is so weak that the regional reader realizes that the applicant has no chance of admission (usually academic 1s and 2s), he would put it directly into the associate director's drawer, where she would have the same options as the director. If she reads the folder and agrees that the applicant has no chance, she would write a red R on the folder and it would go downstairs to the “R’ pile (“rejection letter”), or if she thought the regional reader was too hasty, she'd send it back to get a second read. Typically between 15 and 25 percent of applicants fall into this “one-reader R” category.
When most of the regional reads are completed, the systems people would input all the new data, update the folders, and dump them all into a “second read” drawer. Second reads are a bit less tedious, since the second reader does not have to fill in the biographical data or the other information on the master card. No record keeping is necessary because the first reader has already done that work. Basically, you can sit back in a chair, read the whole application, and then evaluate the applicant in a more holistic way.
Incidentally, the master card and ready sheet are tucked in the back of the folder, so the second reader would not see what the first reader wrote until after he'd read the whole folder and developed his own opinion. The second reader would write a half page or so and then read the first reader's comments (especially in case he had anything helpful to say about a high school) and assign a separate rating. By the way, at Dartmouth, the possible votes, which are written next to the rankings, are “A” (accept), “R” (reject), “P” (possible), and then different gradations, such as “P+” (almost an “A”) and “P-” (closer to an “R”). Each college has its own variation on these votes.
Once the folder has had a second read, the second reader would look at the votes. If both readers agree that the applicant should be rejected, the file would go back to the associate director for a quick third read. Most of the time, she would concur and put the final “R” on the file and send it downstairs, but occasionally, she could find that the first two readers missed something or were too tough; then she could send the folder on to the committee. For any other combination of votes, the folders would be put into the director's drawer. If he decided that two “A” votes were enough to admit, he would put a green A on the folder and send it back to systems; if not, he would either vote or add his own comments and send the folder on to the committee. Since the director has the benefit of reading folders from every region as well as those from around the world, he has a good global perspective. Sometimes he might take a folder with two “A's” on it and decide that the first two readers were too optimistic. Maybe that applicant is slightly less strong than they thought. It is his job to serve as a safeguard to make sure the rest of the staff is being consistent.
Some schools have slight variations on the process I have just outlined. At Princeton, for example, the files are passed along, starting with the least-experienced members of the staff and ending with the member of the staff who has the most experience. All files are eventually seen by the director, so at least three people have a chance to review the applicant's file.
The process I have just described takes about two to two and a half months for regular decision. In March, once all the files have gone through these three readings (or at the minimum, two, in the case of a “one-reader A” or a “one-reader R”), the office would count the total number of “A's” and the total number of “R's,” and then all the votes that average out to some gradation of “P.” Then the committee would spend about five days with all the “P” folders. Depending upon how many people had already been selected for the incoming class, the director would decide how many people to accept from committee. Some colleges meet with professors and admissions staff in committee, some break down into small groups, and some meet as one large group. Dartmouth generally breaks down into three committees of four or five people. Usually, committees are told that of the three-hundred-fifty or so cases they have, roughly one-sixth can be accepted. Thus, the committee process is very tough and many bright kids don't get picked because they simply do not stand out enough to be chosen above others in this brutal competition. Typically, about 1,000 students at Dartmouth are sent to the committee, while only around 170 are accepted.
The reading and committee process can differ at other highly selective schools. At Brown University, for example, it is the regional officer's job to present all applicants from each school in his region to the entire committee for a vote. The officer might briefly summarize the five applicants from one school and then say, “I recommend we take the valedictorian and the chess player and reject the other three.” This process takes weeks and includes very little debate among committee members since they rely on the regional officer's summary.
In Dartmouth's system, the very strongest candidates (and the very weakest) do not have to go to committee. In fact, all the “one-reader A” applications that have been completed by a certain date are gathered and the applicants are mailed what is known in the Ivies as a “likely letter,” which basically says that although the college can't come right out and admit the person (by Ivy League regulation), it is likely that he will be admitted when acceptance letters are mailed in April. (Actually, the Dartmouth letter, in effect, states that the applicant will undoubtedly be accepted in April.) There are some “one-reader A” applications that will be read late in the process (basically due to volume or the fact that these files were missing something), and these applicants won't get a “likely letter,” even though they would have if their file had been read earlier. So not receiving one is not bad; it simply depends upon when the folder is read.
The first wave of “likely letters” at Dartmouth gets mailed out in early February and the second wave in early March. The parameters for a “likely letter” can vary a little by college and by year, but usually at Dartmouth they include one-reader academic 7s, 8s, and 9s, minority applicants who receive one-reader 5s and 6s, and a handful of students with maybe a 4, 5, or 6 academic rating but an extremely high extracurricular/ personal rating, typically for some extraordinary accomplishments. In 1996, Dartmouth mailed out roughly 600 “likely letters,” while in 1997 it mailed out over a thousand.
What is the purpose of sending out these letters? The Ivies and other selective schools feel that they might be able to gain an edge with an exceptional student if they are able to tell him ahead of time that he will be admitted. After all, if you were a top student and your mind was set on Yale but on February tenth you received a warm letter from the director of admissions at Dartmouth saying that you were one of the top applicants in the entire pool and that you will most likely be accepted in April (barring any major grade drops or disciplinary action), you might be tempted to go to Dartmouth, especially if Yale didn't notify you until the April deadline, several months later. The Dartmouth letter even says that one of its purposes is to take the pressure off the applicant. The letter encourages the student to relax and reflect upon his future plans and goals. Such a letter is a tool for yielding the very top students, the 7s, 8s, and 9s, who are likely to be accepted by many different selective colleges, not just one or two. The colleges fight over these top students, since having them on campus will serve the dual purpose of raising the intellectual and academic level overall and increasing the numerical advantages that college will have when calculating its testing averages and other academic measures of strength for college guides.
This, in short, is how each file goes through the reading process. The process may vary slightly in each Ivy League office, and each office may use different rankings, but basically the process is quite similar. There are many checks and balances built into the system. The director of admissions is the major check, since he can overrule a regional person or at least send a folder to the committee. As a point of fact, he rarely just decides himself—if he doesn't agree with the first two readers, he'd write down his reasons on the ready sheet and send the folder to the committee.
The process is really quite democratic. All the voting is done by majority rule. In committee, usually you would need a unanimous vote for an “A”; anything else would either be wait list or rejection. Any close committee vote would be double-checked by the director, who would go through each file separately. In my experience, the truly extraordinary students really do stand out in the process (mostly 7s, Ss, and 9s) and the more borderline cases (4s, 5s, and 6s) end up in committee. Even in committee, the most interesting students stand out and are chosen over those who are less exciting.