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Take you e'er wondered how the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade works? Or how sneezing works? What about the Manhattan Filigree? One of my favorite podcasts (besides ours, cough cough) has got y'all covered. Stuff You Should Know indulges your curiosities nigh the stuff you didn't know that you didn't know. Only, in over 1600 episodes, it seems there's one question they still haven't answered:

How does the higher admission review timeline really piece of work?

To be fair, that's probably far too specific of a question for Josh and Chuck to answer. Luckily, I know a guy who knows a guy who met someone once that tin can answer it instead. (It's me. I'm that someone.)

You lot may exist curious "what's actually going to happen with my application?" and so later wonder "what'due south taking so dang long?!" Sure, submitting a college application tin experience like shouting into a void, or putting something into a black box and waiting to see what comes out the other side. The truth is that "blackness box" of access review is a highly coordinated and active effort among access reviewers. So, while I can throw some advice at y'all to "keep perspective and live in the now!" or "control what you can control!" or any other number of bumper sticker slogans, I also get that some may find comfort peeking into that black box.

Disclaimer: While there is a fair amount of similarity in holistic admission practices betwixt schools, at that place are besides many logistical differences. Different schedules, admission team sizes, application pools, and unlike priorities… you lot get the idea. For that reason, we'll primarily speak for ourselves here and use Georgia Tech every bit an case.

Initial Review

After your application and required documents accept been received and matched in admission databases, your file is complete and ready to review. Yous'll come across plenty of variability hither. Virtually colleges group their application reviews either by geographic area or by academic colleges, some have squad based initial reviews, while others have individual counselors perform a total initial review. Regardless, this all takes fourth dimension.

In our part, the majority of time (roughly two-thirds) between an application deadline and decision notification is spent on this initial, in-depth reviews of files. However, there'south not an accented goal for files per day, or minutes per file. Terminal year, our squad fluctuated anywhere betwixt 500-i,300 combined files reviewed in a twenty-four hours. (The varying schedules of our part-fourth dimension readers also contribute to that fluctuation.)

Our admission office utilizes the team-based approach mentioned above. Prior to Covid we used something called Commission Based Evaluation, but given our readers' variations in schedules due to the pandemic, we moved to a Linear Application Review Procedure.

Yes, we phone call it LARP. No, not that kind of LARP.

This is the same collaborative approach, shifted to a sequential instead of synchronous procedure. Some of the team members are reviewers who are familiar with the applicant'due south geographic region and tin contribute knowledge of the territory and the school to the review. (This is where it becomes especially helpful to review all complete applicants from the same school at once!) In add-on, the applicant will receive a review from another reader who specializes in reviewing the content of the application: honors, activities, essays, and then on. The combination of those reviews volition give a sense of the student, their environment, and their fit to the Institution.

Committee

In some access review processes, information technology's clear within first review whether applicants are a fit or non, and applicants will come up out of those first reviews with a preliminary admission decision. For other offices, they'll review some students again, or all students again, in committee in one case they've completed a critical mass of showtime reviews and have a better understanding of the pool.

My understanding of admission committee growing up was based entirely on a scene out of Legally Blonde: a dozen men in blazers in a dark room with furrowed brows and rejection stamps in their hands. Rest bodacious this is non reality, especially in virtual environments last year where committee review took place at abode on a video telephone call and with a coating, my cat, and (ideally) Cheez-its.

In committee, admission counselors take conversations nearly the initial reviews on the files, discussions around shaping the class, and exchanges on how applicants may fit with the institution and its priorities. Admission counselors may as well receive feedback from their school'southward administration, deans, and stakeholders well-nigh priorities and enrollment targets/goals for that year.

In our instance, the territory manager will remain in these conversations, along with other staff members who can provide new and additional perspectives to the review of the application. Last year nosotros spent virtually 2 weeks in committee per application circular, give or have a few days depending on the volume of applicants. Our team utilizes a lot of smaller committees, while you'll detect that other schools may use i or ii larger committees. For our process, this means that every member of our pocket-sized committees (2-iii people each) has a voice and a role in the conversation. It also means that while we'll come up pretty shut to our final decisions, there are a lot of decisions happening in several committees at once, and we won't hit the verbal number of students we intend to give access offers. Therefore, the last week or two prior to decisions being released is spent making last adjustments.

So at present yous know!

That'southward the black box. Why does it take so long?

  • It takes several months to take thorough, purposeful conversations thousands of times over. There's no Excel formula, magic eight brawl, coil of the dice, or throwing darts at applications to see who we country on, which is for the all-time. My dart throwing skills are abysmal.
  • We're shaping a class: At selective institutions using holistic review, we tin can't brand one pupil's decision and then immediately spit it dorsum out. It takes months of adjustments while reviewing the whole puddle to come up to our commonage last decisions. That means that no unmarried bidder'southward determination is ready until they're all set.

Once more, admission review is similar in many aspects from schoolhouse to schoolhouse, but it can also vary in many ways. As you lot read colleges' websites and attend information sessions or talk to their access counselors, you can likely get some insight into those differences. And every bit e'er, ask questions!

Rick Clark is the Director of Undergraduate Access at Georgia Tech. He has served on a number of national informational and governing boards at the country, regional, and national level. Rick travels annually to U.South. embassies through the Department of Land to discuss the admission procedure and landscape of higher teaching. He is the co-writer of the book The Truth about Higher Admission: A Family Guide to Getting In and Staying Together, and a companion workbook published under the same title. A native of Atlanta, he earned a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Chiliad.Ed. from Georgia State Academy. Prior to coming to Tech, Rick was on the admissions staff at Georgia State, The McCallie Schoolhouse and Wake Woods Academy. @clark2college View all posts by Rick Clark