{"id":57,"date":"2016-01-01T21:20:47","date_gmt":"2016-01-01T13:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/?p=57"},"modified":"2016-01-01T21:52:17","modified_gmt":"2016-01-01T13:52:17","slug":"what-do-undergrad-admissions-look-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/2016\/01\/01\/what-do-undergrad-admissions-look-for\/","title":{"rendered":"What do undergrad admissions look for?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In less than 24 hours, many of the colleges and universities in the U.S. will be closing their application systems for Regular Decision (RD) applicants to\u00a0their undergraduate programs. Their admissions offices will then begin their closed-door process of evaluating applicants. Decisions,\u00a0usually communicated in March and April, are either Accepted\/Admitted, Denied, or Waitlisted. These decisions are rather familiar for Early Decision\/Action applicants, where Waitlisted is replaced with Deferred to RD.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/college.harvard.edu\/admissions\/application-process\/what-we-look\" target=\"_blank\">Harvard<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/undergrad.admissions.columbia.edu\/apply\/first-year\/holistic\" target=\"_blank\">Columbia<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/admissions.yale.edu\/what-yale-looks-for\" target=\"_blank\">Yale<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/admission.princeton.edu\/applyingforadmission\/admission-faqs\/reviewing-applications\" target=\"_blank\">Princeton<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.admissions.upenn.edu\/apply\/what-penn-looks-for\" target=\"_blank\">Penn<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/admissions.berkeley.edu\/admissionrequirements\" target=\"_blank\">UC Berkeley<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/admission.stanford.edu\/basics\/selection\/\" target=\"_blank\">Stanford<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mitadmissions.org\/apply\/process\/match\" target=\"_blank\">MIT<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com.ph\/webhp?q=what+do+undergrad+admissions+look+for\" target=\"_blank\">others<\/a> have all published information on their websites\u00a0as to\u00a0the kind of prospective students they&#8217;re looking for.<\/p>\n<p>Bloomberg Business has an episode on how decisions are made at Amherst College &#8211;<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-content-asset videofit\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"College Admissions: Inside the Decision Room\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Y-OLlJUXwKU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>The Today Show also discusses the process in detail &#8211;<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-content-asset videofit\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Inside the college admissions process   Parenting   TODAYshow com\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2AB-5dCFQrs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>There is also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.quora.com\/How-do-admissions-officers-rate-applicants\" target=\"_blank\">an extensive discussion\u00a0on this topic on Quora<\/a>. Then again, the\u00a0process described was from\u00a0the 80s, <a href=\"http:\/\/time.com\/3767996\/how-mit-rates-applicants\/\" target=\"_blank\">even if it was featured on TIME mid last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Now, what we want is to see what admissions folks look for and note down on each application in recent times. Fortunately, because of the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www2.ed.gov\/policy\/gen\/guid\/fpco\/ferpa\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act<\/a>, all matriculated\u00a0students to U.S. colleges and universities can now review their admissions packages. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/01\/17\/us\/students-gain-access-to-files-on-admission-to-stanford.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">The New York Times featured an article on this January of last year<\/a>, thanks to the work of <a href=\"http:\/\/fountainhopper.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Fountain Hopper<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/cathincollege.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Cath\u00a0Goetze<\/a> of the Stanford Class of 2018 did just that and went through the process!\u00a0Her <a href=\"http:\/\/cathincollege.com\/2015\/04\/08\/i-saw-what-stanford-admissions-officers-said-about-me\/\" target=\"_blank\">extensive blog post about it<\/a> details what admissions officers jot down, and how they rate each applicant. There exists a rate card where scores are assigned to various components.<\/p>\n<p>To make what she discovered\u00a0more digestible, I thought I&#8217;d make a graphic out of it.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/files\/2016\/01\/Stanford-Undergrad-Eval.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-60\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/files\/2016\/01\/Stanford-Undergrad-Eval.jpg\" alt=\"Stanford Undergrad Eval\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/files\/2016\/01\/Stanford-Undergrad-Eval.jpg 2000w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/files\/2016\/01\/Stanford-Undergrad-Eval-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/files\/2016\/01\/Stanford-Undergrad-Eval-1024x576.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>An applicant&#8217;s entire application is composed of essays, recommendations, and a docket. The docket contains components\u00a0that are categorized into the items in cornflower blue. These components, in midnight blue, are each assigned a score.\u00a0Decisions on the applicant are based on these.<\/p>\n<p>A PDF of the above\u00a0may also be <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/files\/2016\/01\/Stanford-Undergrad-Eval.pdf\">downloaded<\/a> for printing and for reference of college counselors.<\/p>\n<p>Note that while the above is for Stanford, other colleges and universities are known to use a similar process given the amount of applications they receive each year.<\/p>\n<p>The admissions process to UK, Canadian, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australian universities would be different but that&#8217;s for another post.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re applying, all the best! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In less than 24 hours, many of the colleges and universities in the U.S. will be closing their application systems for Regular Decision (RD) applicants to\u00a0their undergraduate programs. Their admissions offices will then begin their closed-door process of evaluating applicants. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/2016\/01\/01\/what-do-undergrad-admissions-look-for\/\">Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7928,"featured_media":73,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/files\/2016\/01\/Stanford-Undergrad-Eval-thumb.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7928"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/72"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pmgomez\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}