What tips an AO's decision for a cusp candidate

[Anonymous]

Eagle Scout tips the scale

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Eagle Scout tips the scale

Ignore this poster. Trying to stir the pot

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think there is a lot more to algorithms and scoring (fake standardization) of subjective items like essays and ECs, along with factors affecting yield that may weigh more heavily in the algorithm, than about being "compelling." And yes, I would assume that institutional priorities would be very heavy factors in said algorithm.

I think being "compelling" goes only to the subjectively scored factors and makes AOs feel like they're doing a good job, but the algorithm is the actual decider. Somewhere on that Slate application view, there will be numerical scores.

How would they score essays, ECs and LOR? Who is scoring it? AI?

In most cases, I think humans do the scoring. Some colleges (UNC, see a recent article from their student news) have AI score the writing of the essay, such as grammar, etc., but I don't think most explicitly consider writing quality anymore. It's more about getting to know the student, all very subjective stuff.

I think someone put together a summary of some of the scoring rubrics on this site. It talks about scoring for various parts of the application. This link explains how it is scored - for Stanford, Harvard, Penn, Duke, Northwestern, and Cornell.
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1224166.page

The last page of that thread defines "compelling" for most T10 (copied below), I think. It helped my kid prepare for the last round of interviews.


Found this about Duke (on Reddit from the email from AO to alumni interviewers) which gives insight into what they are looking for:

We know that almost all of our applicants have the academic preparation and extracurricular accomplishments to be successful Duke students. The Admissions Office's challenge is sometimes understanding which students might add something that would particularly benefit the Duke community. Some of these qualities might include:

a particular maturity or depth of thought
a striking accomplishment or unusual and authentic depth of commitment to an interest
a notable sense of imagination, curiosity or creativity
a perspective or experiences atypical of the student body
a demonstrated sense of compassion or concern for others
a resilience in response to challenging circumstances or events.

How thoughtful or reflective is the applicant compared to their peers?
How engaged is the applicant in their commitments and why do they matter to them?
Is there a personal quality of the applicant that stands out even among the most high-achieving and engaged applicants?
Is there anything specific you think they might add to the university community?
What is their sense of Duke, and how well do they know us?

Are Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Yale, Stanford not looking for these things? Only Duke?

a particular maturity or depth of thought
a striking accomplishment or unusual and authentic depth of commitment to an interest
a notable sense of imagination, curiosity or creativity
a perspective or experiences atypical of the student body
a demonstrated sense of compassion or concern for others
a resilience in response to challenging circumstances or events.

I think they all are? Duke published it though for their alumni interviewers.

Lies they tell themselves often enough that they start believing it.

They also say that writing the two essays are completely optional and would have no impact on admissions. Do you believe that?

No that's for the athletes. Its a Div 1 school. Do a little digging about Duke and you'll find out what they want to see.

You are wrong. Just look at common app or their website. Two essays are optional for everyone not just athletes.

From Duke website:

"We want to emphasize that the following questions are optional. Feel free to answer one or
two if you believe that doing so will add something meaningful that is not already shared
elsewhere in your application. Five optional questions are available – a maximum of 2 can be selected."

omg. ofc they are optional for "EVERYONE." They can't say it's only optional for Div 1 athletes!
Why do you think Northwestern does the same thing? Also, Div 1.

It's the classic definition of institutional priorities (and Duke has a new priority with NC/SC). The athletes have the option (and many do) to do just the 1 required essay. My DC is good friends with recruited athletes who committed to both NU and Duke - they did a minimal amount of essays for ED.

Speaking of Duke - you can see a ton from all of their tableau visualization charts. For example, I saw that the 1st choice major my DC applied to had only 4 graduates in 2024 and 1 in 2025.....
I know everyone goes into Trinity undecided, but strategic positioning is extremely important at Duke (for any junior parents out there).

Eh, don’t really buy the “undersubscribed major gets you in” argument. My high stat dc applied for an undersubscribed major with ECs, national awards, recommendations, etc. WL at Duke, Cornell, Northwestern, WashU. Rejected Princeton and Vandy. Ended up at her first choice ED/deferred Ivy but still.

Can you share the specific major?

[Anonymous]

This seems obvious. No?

Every app DC completed had somewhere in it something about their fun, friendly silly personality. I want a campus full of kind fun smart people, not mean or antisocial smart people. Even my engineers.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Based on some of the other questions, what tips an AO decision for a borderline candidate? I saw this post on Reddit today, and this response made me pause - this seems like they are filtering for personality.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1i7z43z/what_is_that_one_factor_that_pushes_kids_over_the/

"Often, it’s just the sense that the applicant is a good egg who will likely be highly involved in and contribute to campus life: a considerate roommate, an intellectually curious and conscientious student, and an enthusiastic community member who will join clubs, serve on executive boards, perform improv, write for the student newspaper, lead hikes for the outdoors center, and otherwise contribute to a welcoming, fun, and varied campus community."

this other thread also had some surprising responses from former AOs:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1i4mr89/whats_up_with_the_aos/

In that second link!:


Honestly, I can tell you from working with students myself that sometimes - but not always - it's the slightly lower SAT students who go TO who stand out in terms of character, leadership, and other intangibles.

Just because you have great stats doesn't mean that you have the strongest personal qualities, the kinds of things AOs and other people in the education field can pick up in essays and LORs.

Well the majority of most selective schools are test required now. Top scores/top grades w/ rigor

I believe 50% of the T25 is still test optional? Do they math.
Princeton, Penn, Northwestern, Duke, UChicago, Columbia, Rice, Vanderbilt, ND, Michigan, WashU, Emory are all TO for next cycle. Not even touching UCLA/UCB or USC.

Not even getting into "most selective" SLACs (Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Pomona) - because, well, you know the answer.

Some of them don't count as "most" selective.

Penn is test required now. Rice is test recommended, essentially test required for unhooked. Emory always loves to see a high scorer.

That leaves Princeton, Northwestern, Duke, UChicago, Columbia, Vanderbilt, ND, WashU. Eight schools. 1/3.

I am not counting public schools.

There is no way Princeton remains the only Ivy test optional. It looks bad.

Princeton cares not at all about how it looks.

We haven't yet seen the data for the Class of '29 but for '28 most of the successful applicants at both Princeton and Columbia submitted SAT or ACT and that likely increased for the most recent class. Many of the TO schools are really test preferred

[Anonymous]

Demonstrated talent and skill in the performing arts shown in the arts supplement. For example, high academic ballet dancers do very well in admissions at schools with student ballet companies like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Duke.

[Anonymous]

If a school doesn't have a "why us" essay or ANY supplementals, is it OK to email the regional AO a short "why this school" email? Or is that just annoying? This would be for a school that admits like 20-25% so highly selective but NOT Princeton.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It's likeability, which of course is problematic since different people define it differently. But positive, curious and kind are the qualities that feed into it. It's compatible with driven, but not the same thing. Too many people use the essays to show how driven they are. That's evident in the high stats. You want to be likeable.

Doesn’t this favor extroverted popular social kids?

Life favors extroverted social people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t read the links, but I absolutely believe this to be true and many have said it. They want to know what you’re going to do to add to their campus and what resources you’re going to take advantage of on campus. It does the school no good to have a brainiac that never leaves their dorm. They want contributors that are engaged to make a dynamic campus who then become engaged alumni and financial contributors

lol. Maybe the brainiac in the dorm contributes *in class* (you know - the point of college?) or will go on to do great things with the education (again the point of college?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:It's likeability, which of course is problematic since different people define it differently. But positive, curious and kind are the qualities that feed into it. It's compatible with driven, but not the same thing. Too many people use the essays to show how driven they are. That's evident in the high stats. You want to be likeable.

Doesn’t this favor extroverted popular social kids?

Life favors extroverted social people.

It actually doesn’t. I am competing for jobs right now with a coworker who is an extraordinary social person but I am just more technically skilled than she is (and it is a highly technical area). I got an offer very quickly and she did not. She will still find something but life certainly is not default favoring her greater extroversion. Life is not actually sorority rush. And for women extroversion can actually work against them sometimes.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I didn’t read the links, but I absolutely believe this to be true and many have said it. They want to know what you’re going to do to add to their campus and what resources you’re going to take advantage of on campus. It does the school no good to have a brainiac that never leaves their dorm. They want contributors that are engaged to make a dynamic campus who then become engaged alumni and financial contributors

lol. Maybe the brainiac in the dorm contributes *in class* (you know - the point of college?) or will go on to do great things with the education (again the point of college?)

Also, those so-called “contributions” valued by those “kind” AOs tend to be quite superficial anyway.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I didn’t read the links, but I absolutely believe this to be true and many have said it. They want to know what you’re going to do to add to their campus and what resources you’re going to take advantage of on campus. It does the school no good to have a brainiac that never leaves their dorm. They want contributors that are engaged to make a dynamic campus who then become engaged alumni and financial contributors

lol. Maybe the brainiac in the dorm contributes *in class* (you know - the point of college?) or will go on to do great things with the education (again the point of college?)

Also, those so-called “contributions” valued by those “kind” AOs tend to be quite superficial anyway.

Indeed, this right here is a great read: https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/fqo68j/aos_cant_actually_detect_authenticity_or_passion/

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I didn’t read the links, but I absolutely believe this to be true and many have said it. They want to know what you’re going to do to add to their campus and what resources you’re going to take advantage of on campus. It does the school no good to have a brainiac that never leaves their dorm. They want contributors that are engaged to make a dynamic campus who then become engaged alumni and financial contributors

lol. Maybe the brainiac in the dorm contributes *in class* (you know - the point of college?) or will go on to do great things with the education (again the point of college?)

Also, those so-called “contributions” valued by those “kind” AOs tend to be quite superficial anyway.

Indeed, this right here is a great read: https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/fqo68j/aos_cant_actually_detect_authenticity_or_passion/

Those incompetent AOs can be easily fooled. This “school” (not even accredited by their state) was able to make up dramatic sob stories to get their students into the T5 colleges that most posters on here could only dream of their kids attending.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/books/review/katie-benner-erica-green-miracle-children.html

[Anonymous]

Teacher recs make a huge difference. They can tell when a teacher is just giving the standard student boilerplate.

[Anonymous]

is this thread about parents realizing PQs matter?