Anonymous
02/06/2026 20:14
Subject: What tips an AO's decision for a cusp candidate
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:The real answer, which no one likes, is institutional priorities. Has nothing to do with the applicant. Does it help shape our class more to have X kid or Y kid? That's what they ask. They don't pick the "better" applicant- they pick who they think they need.
If undersubscribed majors are institutional priorities, and you research and find out that a certain liberal arts major at a private university only had a handful of graduating seniors with that major, is that how you determine that it’s undersubscribed?
How do you determine if something is a priority? A declaration of new funding for a department? Notices from the Provost about the importance of a department?
Where would you go to find this information?
Part of it is looking the percentages of graduates in each major. Others are reading the school's 10 year plan or the president's blog or admissions blog. I learned a lot this way. Read the supplemental prompts carefully and you'll soon see that DC doesn't fit what the school is seeking. You will have an idea soon what the priorities are AND also what kind of qualities they are looking (helpful if you don't fit any institutional priority). Good luck!
Anonymous
02/06/2026 19:01
Subject: What tips an AO's decision for a cusp candidate
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:The real answer, which no one likes, is institutional priorities. Has nothing to do with the applicant. Does it help shape our class more to have X kid or Y kid? That's what they ask. They don't pick the "better" applicant- they pick who they think they need.
If undersubscribed majors are institutional priorities, and you research and find out that a certain liberal arts major at a private university only had a handful of graduating seniors with that major, is that how you determine that it’s undersubscribed?
How do you determine if something is a priority? A declaration of new funding for a department? Notices from the Provost about the importance of a department?
Where would you go to find this information?
Yes. And look at the CDS for hints on how to start reverse engineering pool sizes (e.g. geo, gender, race, income, etc). Then it’s largely scraping data to add more assumptions. Like ‘10% athletes’ or ‘Y sized band’ or ‘we want to increase Y’ or ‘our school of X graduates Y students’.
It gets scary pretty quickly for non-priority pools - the number of seats available for regular, brilliant kids can be tiny.
Anonymous
02/06/2026 11:12
Subject: What tips an AO's decision for a cusp candidate
Anonymous wrote:The real answer, which no one likes, is institutional priorities. Has nothing to do with the applicant. Does it help shape our class more to have X kid or Y kid? That's what they ask. They don't pick the "better" applicant- they pick who they think they need.
If undersubscribed majors are institutional priorities, and you research and find out that a certain liberal arts major at a private university only had a handful of graduating seniors with that major, is that how you determine that it’s undersubscribed?
How do you determine if something is a priority? A declaration of new funding for a department? Notices from the Provost about the importance of a department?
Where would you go to find this information?
Anonymous
02/06/2026 09:23
Subject: What tips an AO's decision for a cusp candidate
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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/
Great reference!
Do you by any chance have the link to the earlier thread that was mentioned at the beginning? Thanks.
Oops, I saw that it’s copied in the thread. Sorry!
Anonymous
02/06/2026 09:18
Subject: What tips an AO's decision for a cusp candidate
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote: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/
Great reference!
Do you by any chance have the link to the earlier thread that was mentioned at the beginning? Thanks.
Anonymous
02/06/2026 09:05
Subject: What tips an AO's decision for a cusp candidate
The real answer, which no one likes, is institutional priorities. Has nothing to do with the applicant. Does it help shape our class more to have X kid or Y kid? That's what they ask. They don't pick the "better" applicant- they pick who they think they need.