Originally featured in the Crimson Admissions blog
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Here’s an angle you don’t usually hear in
discussions about the increasingly competitive landscape of college and
graduate school admissions: Rejection letters don’t only sadden students and
keep them up late at night repeatedly asking themselves “why?
…They have the same strong emotional impact on
admissions committee members as well.
Angel B. Perez, Director of
Admission at Pitzer College in Claremont, wrote in her emotional op-ed for the Los Angeles Times:“What…families
don't see is the amount of emotion that admissions officers across the country
pour into making these decisions. These students don't know that behind closed
doors, we argue about these difficult decisions. Each of us fights for the kids
in admissions committee meetings, and we're truly sad when we turn away
applicants…"
Jean Webb—former Director of Admissions at YLS and current admissions
counselor for InGenius Prep—felt
similarly when discussing her emotional reactions to making
decisions on law school applications.
She explained that “admissions officers
care about people; if they don’t, the simply don’t last long in the business.
They also care about creating opportunities for people who have encountered
obstacles to success. It is incredibly exciting when an offer of admission is a
dream-come-true for someone.”
But, the unfortunate flipside of that, she explained, is that it is
saddening to not be able to do so. And, at an institution as selective as Yale,
she had to do so more than 90% of the time. I would imagine that after making
these life-changing decisions for people for seventeen years can really take
its emotional toll, but Jean’s passion to help students work toward their dream
has not waned one bit.
When we asked her to recount one of those thousands
of sad cases without, of course, she told us:
One
of my saddest experiences was of a case like that -- but one that didn’t have a
happy ending. The admitted student -- with a learning disability -- had
had strong support from his family throughout his education and appropriate
accommodations from his undergraduate institution. The documented
disability made it possible for him to take the LSAT under accommodated
conditions, and he performed very well. His letters of recommendation
were outstanding. Once the student enrolled, however, his work was far
enough below the expectations of his first-semester faculty member and student
teaching assistant that they came to the admissions office to look at his file.
Had we made a mistake? I don’t think so. But such situations
-- for better or for worse -- make admissions officers cautious about reaching
outside the school’s “comfort zone” in making offers.
So, by now, I know what you must be thinking …“Boo Hoo! Admissions
officers had to make tough decisions, but that doesn’t make me feel any better,
and it certainly doesn’t put an acceptance letter in my hands.”
The point of this article isn’t to make you feel bad for these
admissions officers, but rather to raise awareness about the fact that it
doesn't always have to be this way. As Angel Perez explained, admissions
readers bring applications to committee and actually vehemently argue about the
difficult cases. By putting yourself in the best possible position with the
most polished application and a truly compelling application persona, you can
arm your admissions reader-advocate (should your application be compelling
enough to pique enough interest to have one in the first place) with all the
fodder he or she needs to get that “admitted” stamp on your file.
Noah Greenfield,
the co-founder of InGenius Prep – an
admissions consulting company for aspiring college, law school, medical school,
and business school students with the one of the largest teams of former
admissions officers in the world—shared a similar sentiment as his impetus for
starting the company:
I was involved in making decisions for
summer programs at Columbia and Yale. What was surprising to me was just how
easy the decision making process was. The good applications were just so good - everyone who got into these
competitive programs (from about 250 applications for 20 spots each) stood out
far above most of their peers. It was only when some students contacted me
after they were not accepted and asked me to help them understand what they
might improve that I realized that a good number of those rejected students had
the exact same numbers, extra-curriculars and experiences, etc., that the WOW
students had. But, the difference to me was that they couldn't figure out how
to communicate it to us in a WOW fashion. We might have taken a closer look if
they had, but why would we bother when a) we were busy with other aspects of
the program b) the great students were so compelling they were no-brainers?
The idea of the people behind these
applications being probably equally qualified, but having less polished
application materials made me uncomfortable for a long time. It would really
keep me up at night that I seemed to be making such snap judgments based on
such a small sample size of information. What I take solace in, though, is that
a lot of that polish reflects the “extra mile” that students can go to in order
to make sure their application truly stands out as a WOW application instead of
one that just has like many others status upon review. I also realized pretty
quickly that this phenomenon isn’t unique to the admissions process. It’s
prevalent in job applications, almost any competitive or selective process in
the world, and almost any important decisions that a businessperson or
professional makes. Decisions are always made on sub-optimal information and
often with limited resources and time, so preparation, persistence, and
presentation are just as important as performance.
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