To evaluate each applicant, Chicago counselors begin by composing little stories about them. Each youth's folder contains her application form, transcript and letters, along with a statistical sheet that profiles the student's high school: how hard do teachers grade, how many advanced-placement, or A.
The entire file is first read by the admissions counselor who recruits in the student's region of the country. The counselor then writes perhaps words suggesting whether this person belongs at Chicago. The counselor also grades each applicant 1 to 5 for academics, A to E for activities, talents and character. The best 20 percent often 1-A's become "express" files that go straight to O'Neill for approval. Most files, though, go from the first reader to a second counselor, then to an associate director like Chemery.
If the three of them can agree on how to classify an applicant, her file goes with others like it into one of 21 boxes that sort applicants into cohorts: the 2-B's in one box, the 3-minus-B-pluses in another. Before decision letters go out, O'Neill also gives many of the files a fourth look.
The most contentious or borderline cases go to meetings of the full admissions committee. These can be no less passionate than a debate between professor and student. Examples: Why is this girl's transcript so uneven?
Is this kid so full of himself that our faculty--which itself brims with prima donnas--will complain that he can only spout his own dogmas? Do we care that she attempted a break-in at school if she was only trying to retrieve her books? The troubling case of Justin hits three such chords. His grades have ranged from F's to A's.
He's had one scrape with the law. He now ranks near the top of his class, and his test scores are superb. Two of Chicago's counselors, put off by his unstable record and his self-absorbed essays, have urged rejection; one says there is "little evidence he cares about anyone but himself.
O'Neill is intrigued. Justin's case is so confounding that committee members set it aside and turn to Roberto. His recommendations are strong, his test scores weak.
Chicago does not segregate its minority applicants into pools where they compete only against each other. O'Neill does acknowledge that "if they're qualified, minorities have an easier time being declared desirable," because they bring fresh perspectives to the classroom.
Often, though, the question is whether Chicago's rigor will engage an applicant or overwhelm him. The committee looks to its own minority members--two African-Americans, a Latino and a native African--for the answer. On average, minority students have lower standardized test scores than white students. But, says O'Neill, "later in life, they succeed. We help make things accessible for them. O'Neill and Hernandez see Roberto as a strong candidate, a once purposeless youth who now shows great potential to be a leader.
After a poor beginning, the boy's high-school grades are moving upward. But just as the committee appears ready to accept Roberto, counselor Kazi Joshua invokes the memory of Justin. When admissions officers at selective colleges don't know how to resolve these tough calls, they often turn to an applicant's essays. The student's words can seal his fate--a fact not lost on applicants who write one set of good responses and adapt them for as many colleges as they can.
Chicago is famous for asking questions for which there can be no boilerplate answers. Example: given the probability that the federal tax code, nondairy creamer, Dennis Rodman and the art of mime all came from outer space, name something else that has extraterrestrial origins and defend your hypothesis. One response: Barbie, who has seduced millions of women into fruitless attempts to mimic her alien shape. A less outlandish question asks why you want to attend Chicago. It is not cool to answer, as some applicants do, "I want to attend Columbia because The essays also allow applicants to explain the most formative moments in their lives.
There is no right answer here, but there can be wrong ones. Counselors roll their eyes at sagas told in formulaic ways, as if lifted from books on how to get into college: "As the storm raged, the other climbers were nearing hypothermia as I led them down the mountain in British Columbia One of this year's best: a Latino applicant's essay on his love of classical music and books.
If essay answers are useful to counselors, standardized test scores often are not. Listen to committee debates, and it's clear that because scores tend to correlate with grades--both high or both low--many times the scores aren't even mentioned. The numbers often say less about the applicant than about the quality of school district, or the private-school tuition, that his parents have been able to afford.
With 12 days to finish its job, O'Neill's team still has 4, applicants hanging in the balance. Of this year's nearly 7, applicants, roughly 2, were accepted during the early-action phase, or have been chosen to receive acceptance letters that will be mailed in late March. An additional 1, applicants clearly won't make the cut. Admissions officers close in on the remaining candidates from above and below, moving toward the point where the last applicant is accepted and the next goes onto the waitlist.
The crush of applications has backed up the system by six crucial days. Chemery, Bischoff and Andre Phillips, the third associate director, begin to comb one last time through every box, even the double-denies.
Occasionally they slide files from box to box, making sure they've arranged the whole field from most desirable to least. Embrace this liminal phase. We are in a liminal phase in our admissions work—building a class that is not complete yet—and I find myself anxiously looking forward to April and beyond. We are anticipating meeting some of you again in the fall when you matriculate.
We are excited to watch the Class of grow throughout their time at Tufts. I, too, have to step back and appreciate the process, knowing that this time of reading and waiting is paving the way for the excitement that comes next. I promise to lean into the wait if you do. The Waiting Game Feb Inside Admissions. Liminality: relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition. Visit us at ingeniusprep. See you every other Monday!
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