Things Admission Officers Stress About

“Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives."

— Charlie Munger

Let's do a deep dive on how students can take advantage of InitialView, even for this RD cycle. But first, let's analyze the pressures on admissions officers at top colleges. They are under pressure because they want to avoid mistakes like (1) admitting someone who isn't right for the institution, and (2) admitting someone who doesn't come.

Mistake #1: If they admit someone who won't thrive at their school, then they will have given a valuable space to someone who won't contribute to the culture of the institution, who won't graduate in four years, who won't tell others about how great their school was, who won't use their time at the school as a springboard to greater achievement, and who won't someday as alumni give their money to the institution. In other words, the opportunity cost of admitting someone who isn't right for their institution is high--much higher than just the amount of their tuition

As a result, admissions officers are constantly asking themselves not just “Is this student qualified?", but rather “Will they thrive at our institution?” In fact, admissions officers at selective colleges say that 80-90% of applicants are “academically qualified”. Instead they ask questions like: Will the student be comfortable among other leaders? Does the student truly love to learn? Do they have passions that align with those already at our institution?

Of course, you know the tools admissions officers typically use: the high school transcript (grades and course rigor), the high school profile, test scores, recommendation letters, essays (in that order of importance). But note: these tools have limitations in answering the questions above since they all are filtered through a third party. Sometimes it's hard to judge the extent to which that third party should be trusted.

This is one benefit to InitialView. It's just you. It's not what someone said about you or what someone wrote about you or how a test measured you. After all, admissions officers are admitting you, not the others who might have been involved in your application, and they want as clear a picture as they can get—because they want to admit someone who will thrive.

Mistake #2: Let's continue to look at incentives that impact admissions officers

Consider first the key broad admissions metrics that admissions offices focus on each year. One, they look at the total number of applications they receive. An increase in applications makes admissions officers' bosses—i.e., college presidents—feel good, so naturally admissions officers want lots of applications.

Second, they look at selectivity, usually demonstrated by an admit rate. Ironically, admissions offices increase selectively by rejecting as many applicants as possible. In other words, a college wants your student's application, but they don't want your student. That may sound harsh, but we humans tend to think that if something is more selective then it is more valuable, and the college admissions process simply reflects this human tendency.

Colleges are like a hotel that has only so many rooms. They want to fill the rooms, but if they let in too many people, there won't be enough "rooms" (either literally in the sense of dorm rooms or more figuratively in the terms of resources like classes) to go around. So the trick for colleges is to estimate the true interest of each applicant in their respective college. Admissions officers do this by evaluating “demonstrated interest", which is a behind-the-scenes calculation you never get to see. It typically involves mining data about applicant behavior during the admissions process: Did the applicant visit campus? Does the applicant open emails? Did the applicant come to an info session? When an admissions office is at the last stage of the process, something called “sculpting” their class, they will be asking more generally, is this student in the category of students to typically say yes if we admit them?

Some schools will say they don't measure “demonstrated interest”, but I would posture that all do to some extent. Here's a thought experiment: What if in one of your essays you accidentally include the name of another college? Do you think they would let you in? Almost certainly not. That would be an easy reject. At a minimum, students who spend more time researching a school, attending online events, paying thorough attention to requirements and optional supplements often produce a better application and admissions officers can see that.

InitialView helps you demonstrate your interest in a convincing way by giving each student during regular decision two “virtual stars” to assign to two of their top colleges. This is convincing because while you can send your interview to as many colleges as you want, you only get two stars. We can see from data that an InitialView interview tends to help (this is likely because dud applicants don't send their InitialView materials, so an interview helps prevent mistake #1), and then that one with a star really helps.

If you're applying RD, InitialView is probably your best way to stand out in the crowded pool. When you do an InitialView interview, the decision tree is simple: first If you're happy with your interview, just send it everywhere. If you're not happy with it, then you don't have to send it. Second, be thoughtful about your two stars. That's it. Even at RD, the best way to increase your chances is to help admissions officers avoid mistakes.

*Gloria Chyou Crawford, a graduate of Wellesley College and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is the COO and Co-founder of InitialView, a world leader in using video to make connections between students and admissions officers. Students from over 150 countries have participated in an InitialView interview and submitted their interviews and writing samples to over 400 colleges and universities in the United States over the past decade. To learn more, visit https://initialview.com/for_applicants