Anonymous wrote:Admission staff are usually college's own grads who don't have better job options.

Exactly! We also discovered this to be true. (I felt horribly judgmental, but...) Every time the admissions staff would gush about being a proud grad of the school - I'd immediately think "and this is what you got from your $80k x 4 investment" ? (Then on the less judgmental side of my brain...) I'm curious what these young adults learn from that job and what they use it to springboard into.

It doesn't help that many of our high school's CCO staff (abysmal this year) also took a tour through college admissions offices before moving to the HS environment.

Anonymous wrote:I trust test scores much much more than these folks reading essays, ECs etc.

What a F'ed up system

+1 completely f*up. Might as well call it a lottery, which it basically is now.

A while ago William & Mary posted a job on indeed for reading applications. They don't even require a 4-year college degree. Your high stats DC could be rejected by one who only went to high school.

Interesting video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2i4lSMpG7Rk

This AO mentions having to travel a lot at not very high pay.

Anonymous wrote:Admission staff are usually college's own grads who don't have better job options.

+1

Admission staff are usually college's own grads who don't have better job options.

Anonymous wrote:I trust test scores much much more than these folks reading essays, ECs etc.

What a F'ed up system

Wait until you hear about who ends up working in HR screening resumes

I trust test scores much much more than these folks reading essays, ECs etc.

What a F'ed up system

How is this different than how it has been for the last 10 years?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This explains so much. Thanks for posting.

There has always been a lot of turnover in the role. It involves a lot of travel for crappy pay and it’s hard to advance without changing schools. This is not new. But I fail to understand “what this explains.”

It explains that schools value their "filter function" less than Starbucks pays an assistant manager. At T30, you have a bunch of low wage young people looking at private school coastal applications. In the current climate, how do you think they will read those applications.

Yes I'm being deliberately proactive.

Yes and seasonal reader jobs pay $12-$18 and you are on the clock to read 4 - 6 applications per hour and score them. (ps. you can find the job descriptions - even at Ivies that show those expectations)

The entire process is broken

It should be like residency match in medicine - you rank your matches 1 to 20 and they rank applicants and those are matched.

Anonymous wrote:This explains so much. Thanks for posting.

There has always been a lot of turnover in the role. It involves a lot of travel for crappy pay and it’s hard to advance without changing schools. This is not new. But I fail to understand “what this explains.”

I worked in a staff (not faculty) role at a university and the hours were VERY cushy; about 35 hours/week. So the pay isn’t too bad for that.

This explains so much. Thanks for posting.

New study confirms what we all know....there has been massive turnover in lower level college admissions staff

Some of this is not new and the study does not show a time series to show if the turnover is increasing....but many in admissions think so

https://www.cupahr.org/surveys/research-briefs/the-higher-ed-admissions-workforce-april-2023/

"71 percent of coordinators and counselors have been in their jobs for just three years or less."

Median age of admissions counselors/coordinators at universities is 30

Study also concludes: "Black employees are currently well represented within the admissions workforce overall in comparison to U.S. bachelor’s degree holders"

"The representation of people of color notably declines from coordinators and counselors (31% people of color) to heads of admissions (23% people of color)."

Median pay is $44k per year for admissions counselors.

With that much turnover (rivals waitstaff at restaurants), and what some here have posted as minimum wage seasonal jobs reading applications, you really wonder whether the best and the brightest are reading our kids's applications.