Reply to Insider Perspectives from a Highly Selective Admissions Office

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I find No. 15 interesting:

"What do you mean about your institution changing over the last few years? I can't think of a top college that has changed that much in the last few years that the experience of alums who graduated in, say, 2000, are no longer relevant? Or am I out of the loop? I ask because I used to do alumni interviewing and the school keeps asking me to volunteer again (I stopped due to a combination of time scarcity and the feeling that the interviews were a waste of time as no one I interviewed ever got accepted). 
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OP here. First point of clarification by "very recent graduate" would be someone who graduated within the last 8-10 years or earlier. Most institutions today are more diverse (more international students, URMs, low-income students, students from out of state), much more endowed and resourced (lots of new programs that started only a few years ago), and are changing in other ways (more STEM students than humanities students, a rise in pre-professionalism than before). We encourage our on-campus interviewers to ask students what diversity means to them, given the heavy interactions students from all walks of life have with each other at our college; the campus was more divided in past years. Academic standards are higher than ever before- our median SAT was around a 680 on each section 20 years back and is now around a 750; many alums interpret a current 680 to mean top of the applicant pool when it's actually near the bottom 25%. Also, the majority of alums would not be admitted today; our standards have gotten to the point where just having good test scores and grades isn't enough to get in, and a good number of alums use that as the only basis to judge the students they interview, which doesn't bring much new info to what we already have. The majority of them say that this applicant is one of the best they've seen, and when you see that nearly 50%+ of the time, it doesn't help.

We value our alums greatly and want to incorporate them in our admissions process. We don't remove the program because some applicants really do want an interview (even though it's honestly inconsequential) and we simply can't reach everyone with our on-campus programs. Furthermore, alumni are really fond of the program, so we don't want to discontinue it- it also gives us a way to connect them with the current situations of our college. There are many alums who do keep in touch with the changes at our college, and can put down genuine, well-thought out perspectives about the nuances of our candidates; we recognize and value that. It's just hard to hold everyone to the same standard when people are so far away. The point is a larger one, but of course we know who within each group (on-campus and off-campus) does a good or mediocre job. That helps us adjust the level of consideration we give to them.

The reason you're probably not seeing many of your own students getting admitted is because the strongest students have the resources to travel to top colleges and conduct on-campus interviews. It's unfortunate, because it makes alums think we're out to reject the students who they take the time to interview (which we're very grateful of, no matter what), but that's the reality. Our mission is to recruit the strongest students, and many of them don't go through alumni interviews. [/quote]

Interesting. There are many colleges who provide alumni "interviews" but very few who've ever used the alumni feedback towards admissions. You're saying that at this college the admissions office did use this information in previous years? 
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