Inside the Admissions Process: Evaluating Top Candidates Amidst Personal Struggles (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: All right, we're on page 61. She's got fives in four APs. We divide our applicant pool of circa 8,000 candidates into 30 plus geographic regions and we pair two readers to each region. With Caitlin on her being an inside the box kind of gal.

Speaker 2: Inside the box.

Speaker 1: Inside the box. How many would like to admit? Wait list. Prior to the conversations we have here as a committee, the group has been significantly reduced to a really, really accomplished group.

Speaker 2: He's a top tester. He's got all A's. For varsity sports. The first chair trumpet in the orchestra.

Speaker 1: You ready for this? 6.4 GPA on a four scale. Did he get all those fives without AP courses? Yeah. Woof. But we can't take them all and so about a thousand candidates are brought to be heard by the whole committee.

Speaker 3: And the process of making those decisions is agonizing.

Speaker 1: I'm questioning the edge here, however, in all her excellence. How many would like to admit? Okay, she goes to the wait list.

Speaker 3: We're fully aware of the fact that the process is, I don't want to say flawed, but is making minute distinctions among extraordinarily talented kids. There are times, honestly, where I'm not sure why I put my hand up or failed to put my hand up. I'm kind of going with my gut here.

Speaker 4: The night before her AP chemistry exam, she learned her father had an affair with a 23-year-old prostitute.

Speaker 1: How many would like to admit?

Speaker 4: One parent is a business exec VP with a master's, both went to Harvard. He's got three sibs at Harvard in classes of 09, 11, and 15.

Speaker 2: His family financial situation took a huge hit and they lost their family store and all other assets.

Speaker 1: When a student is particularly poor and are achieving at an exceptionally high level, that will be a plus factor for that student.

Speaker 4: Dad's alcoholism consuming the family. This is a quote from one of his essays, the alcohol consuming poor Muslim family down the street with whom no sane member of society would want to interact.

Speaker 3: How many would like to admit? I am cognizant of some lives being changed, literally. On the other hand, yeah, I do feel badly. The months of February and March are simply no fun.