Admissions officers/reviewers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are they typically men or women?
Any #s out there reporting this?
Who are the people reading kids' essays and judging them into a pile in less than 10 minutes? What are their qualifications usually?

Why do you care, and what do you wish to do with this info?

Read a few posts above, that's why maybe OP is asking

[Anonymous]

I don’t want to say how I figured this out. DC at Harvard. File read by two AOs — first one is grad student at H, but undergrad school is not even Top 200! Comes from a FG family (due to scholarship name). Ugh — she had no idea what to make of DC’s file and the bias was clear! I’m a SAHM and DC is very accomplished in this one field that the AO did not understand at all. Luckily the second reader was more experienced and from a prestigious SLAC — she said she liked DC and gave higher ratings. Truly, it’s all luck!

I watched this YT video of a former Harvard AP saying he comes from this place in CA with a lot of Vietnamese. And when he joined H, he did not understand why none of them were there so he started advocating for them! So if you don’t have an AO who understands your accomplishments or is not from a similar background or just doesn’t get you, you’re SOL. It really does come down to luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t want to say how I figured this out. DC at Harvard. File read by two AOs — first one is grad student at H, but undergrad school is not even Top 200! Comes from a FG family (due to scholarship name). Ugh — she had no idea what to make of DC’s file and the bias was clear! I’m a SAHM and DC is very accomplished in this one field that the AO did not understand at all. Luckily the second reader was more experienced and from a prestigious SLAC — she said she liked DC and gave higher ratings. Truly, it’s all luck!

I watched this YT video of a former Harvard AP saying he comes from this place in CA with a lot of Vietnamese. And when he joined H, he did not understand why none of them were there so he started advocating for them! So if you don’t have an AO who understands your accomplishments or is not from a similar background or just doesn’t get you, you’re SOL. It really does come down to luck.

Thanks for sharing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s depends on the school. You can view their profiles for the school you are applying to. For example, here is Amherst: https://www.amherst.edu/admission/staff

Thank you for posting this.

Interesting how reading the admissions officers brief profiles affected my view & understanding of Amherst College & reminded me of the overwhelming liberalism of the Pioneer Valley colleges.

There’s nothing political about these bios, unless you’re nervous that people read, cycle, and hike

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s depends on the school. You can view their profiles for the school you are applying to. For example, here is Amherst: https://www.amherst.edu/admission/staff

Thank you for posting this.

Interesting how reading the admissions officers brief profiles affected my view & understanding of Amherst College & reminded me of the overwhelming liberalism of the Pioneer Valley colleges.

There’s nothing political about these bios, unless you’re nervous that people read, cycle, and hike

+1, the bios are nearly identical to the ones at Pomona, for reference: https://www.pomona.edu/admissions/connect/admissions-officer . Has nothing to do with the area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think at my state school grad students do essay review for a 2nd job.

So a bachelor's degree is a minimum ??

I can't find a posting for my school. But I found Ohio State and they require a bachelor's degree.

https://www.indeed.com/m/viewjob?jk=4718b2ec082e6bf3&from=serp&mclk=default&xpse=SoC167I3vDGalVy-k50LbzkdCdPP&xfps=098b0116-6335-4883-90b9-37ae7aab24ef&xkcb=SoCx67M3vDGb2TyQzh0PbzkdCdPP

I think that is quite sufficient. Essay readers read, make some notes, and give a rating. They may be whole application reviewers. A lot of the details relate to comparison with other applicants. It doesn't take long for raters to understand fairly well how to rate applicants vs. each other.

[Anonymous]

I find the whole profession to be very barbell. Half are kids who were on FA and worked in admissions during undergrad (either tour guides or in the office). the other half are professional who came up through system or came in via CBOs or high schools.

Either way, very insular. Not a lot of experience. Easy to fall of the EC du jour. (I always laugh when they say mission trips are "not impressive" or non profits are "over" when they impressed this same people for a very long time)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s depends on the school. You can view their profiles for the school you are applying to. For example, here is Amherst: https://www.amherst.edu/admission/staff

Thank you for posting this.

Interesting how reading the admissions officers brief profiles affected my view & understanding of Amherst College & reminded me of the overwhelming liberalism of the Pioneer Valley colleges.

There’s nothing political about these bios, unless you’re nervous that people read, cycle, and hike

+1, the bios are nearly identical to the ones at Pomona, for reference: https://www.pomona.edu/admissions/connect/admissions-officer . Has nothing to do with the area.

Is this a good thing? If Amherst doesn't understand your accomplishments so will every other college? Each school should be different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:you can look online. my Type A kid worked some essays for specific regional AOs in mind.

Same. And it worked.

A year ago or so there were some controversial posts about young URM AOs admitting more candidates “like them”. The post was locked but had a lot of truth in it re AOs.

Where is this post?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:you can look online. my Type A kid worked some essays for specific regional AOs in mind.

Same. And it worked.

A year ago or so there were some controversial posts about young URM AOs admitting more candidates “like them”. The post was locked but had a lot of truth in it re AOs.

Where is this post?

Not the PP who wrote that above post about AOs admitting "like them." There was this thread https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/270/1268016.page
but didn't read all pages of the thread to see if anything PP mentioned is in it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very young
Very progressive

Imagine someone like AOC reviewing most apps and deciding who goes to committee.

I would like to nominate the above for "post of the year".

🏹 this is why your DC didn't get into an elite school, had nothing to do with your DC being mediocre

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s depends on the school. You can view their profiles for the school you are applying to. For example, here is Amherst: https://www.amherst.edu/admission/staff

Thank you for posting this.

Interesting how reading the admissions officers brief profiles affected my view & understanding of Amherst College & reminded me of the overwhelming liberalism of the Pioneer Valley colleges.

There’s nothing political about these bios, unless you’re nervous that people read, cycle, and hike

+1, the bios are nearly identical to the ones at Pomona, for reference: https://www.pomona.edu/admissions/connect/admissions-officer . Has nothing to do with the area.

Is this a good thing? If Amherst doesn't understand your accomplishments so will every other college? Each school should be different.

What? No people just like reading and hiking, no matter where they are in the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s depends on the school. You can view their profiles for the school you are applying to. For example, here is Amherst: https://www.amherst.edu/admission/staff

Thank you for posting this.

Interesting how reading the admissions officers brief profiles affected my view & understanding of Amherst College & reminded me of the overwhelming liberalism of the Pioneer Valley colleges.

There’s nothing political about these bios, unless you’re nervous that people read, cycle, and hike

+1, the bios are nearly identical to the ones at Pomona, for reference: https://www.pomona.edu/admissions/connect/admissions-officer . Has nothing to do with the area.

Is this a good thing? If Amherst doesn't understand your accomplishments so will every other college? Each school should be different.

What? No people just like reading and hiking, no matter where they are in the US.

Ok. what about other esoteric stuff? I give you an example of Lacrosse - it's widely known now. But used to be a East/Mid-Atlantic sport. Back then - you could participate in DMV high-schools but unheard of in the rest of the country. Traveling back in time - Amherst would know what a winning Lacrosse championship meant. But would people at Pomona in the 1990s know? And now think of all the 100s of unique cultures the US offers and are now getting facilitated would these AOs know what they mean?

Yes - if you are boring and only participate in the norm activities and that's what the AOs want then moving on. Life is too valuable to get homogenized.