Episode 17: The Lifecycle of a College Application

Date of Publication/发布日期

December 25, 2020

Author/发布者

Curtis Westbay

Language/语言

English

Files & media

Volume

Volume 1 2020-2021

I was going to compare the college application to a star, but it seems like every star ends up some calamitous disaster— a white dwarf, a neutron star, a black hole. Instead, let's keep it straightforward and leave analogy for another time. Here is the process a college application goes through, start to finish.

Students make their school list with a counselor, and then they set about the first step— making the to-do list.
Based on every school's application, students will have different priorities. Most schools require a personal statement (or variation of one), and so students at BASIS always start here. The personal statement is a very open-ended essay that will serve as the first impression of a student's personality in the application.
Of course, by the time of the application's inception, the ink will be all but dry on most of the components of the application— the GPA, test scores, activities, etc. Most of the work that students do with their counselors in Grade 12 involves essays and packaging the other parts of the application, particularly the activity list, so that students can be as memorable as possible to time-pressed application readers.
This stage involves a lot (a lot) of brainstorming. Students might struggle to conceive of an essay topic based on an essay prompt, and so, before they get too far, they may work through several angles for an essay with their counselor.

Revision

Especially when it comes to the personal statement, students may go through several versions (i.e. entirely different essays) and a dozen or more drafts (i.e. directions within the same version). This is most common with the personal statement, but it's not uncommon for colleges for which the application consists of several different medium-length essays, like the University of California system, which requires 4 essays that are up to 350 words apiece.
The same goes for activity lists. A student may want to emphasize different features of their involvement to different colleges, or possibly they complete an activity in Grade 12 that they feel warrants attention. Students will write and revise their activity lists to reflect these changes.

Refinement

Then, counselor and student alike agonize over each line of each essay.
Students have a class called College Counseling in Grade 12, and so they spend significant amounts of time working on every application.
The time that students put into carefully crafting each part of each application provides a comparative advantage, as most students around the world are engaged in coursework all day and tend to procrastinate their college applications as a result.

Finalization

After a few months of work, students fill in every field of the application carefully in whichever application portal is used by a college.
Then, counselors review the submission before students press "send." This is made easy through some application portals, like the Common Application, which allow students to export a PDF version of their applications.
If a student is applying through the Early Decision option to a school, they may be required to submit financial documentation as well, demonstrating ability to pay. Financial documents are accompanied by a signed contract, stating intent to withdraw all other applications, if a student is accepted. [The College Admission department will provide a seminar on this process to G12 parents months before the ED deadlines.]

📝

The application is sent! Now, what happens to it when it is received by colleges? Well, every college admission office has its own workflow and procedures, but generally speaking, here's what happens.

Initial Receipt and Rough Screening

Applications are read by a regional admission officer, responsible for the initial application review of (and, in more normal times, the college visits to) certain geographic areas. This means that for many colleges, there is one person who receives and reads all of the applications to their institution that come from southern China.
Of course, the first step is to review the quantitative factors of an application. If a student's grade and exam numbers don't impress a college, they may get little to no attention in subsequent rounds of review.
In the initial review, some applications get flagged as being particularly noteworthy, some from excellence in metrics, others in activities, and others in essays. The first round of review is just meant to prepare definitive recommendations on the surefire acceptances and rejections; those applications in the margins will get more attention later.

Secondary Review and Marginal Screening

Then, maybe a college admission officer reports to assistant admission director with whom they will spend additional time looking over the applications on their caseload.
Within a small group, the surefire yeses and nos will be confirmed, the marginal applications will be pared down, and eventually (all the while working toward an acceptance and yield target), the strongest marginal applications will be sent to committee review.

Tertiary Review and Committee Screening

In a large group session, applications will be looked at by the collective. At some colleges, this is done rapid-fire, with applications being projected for the whole group to see. By this point, perhaps, the key information of an application has been condensed so that those deciding can make quick assessments of the remaining applications.
As they near the end of the application review, colleges may be in a time crunch to finalize their decisions. Those present who conducted the initial and secondary rounds of review on applications get to state their cases for the students they feel strongly about. In the end, at highly-selective colleges, some of these decisions will be very arbitrary. As a consolation prize for those students who don't make the cut, their applications can land in the gray space between acceptance and rejection, and they end up on the waitlist (or, in the case of early application, are deferred to the regular decision round).

Decision— Acceptance, Rejection, Waitlist, Deferral

Four outcomes (generally) are possible:

Acceptance— yay! You're in! If you applied Early Decision, you are informed that you got in and reminded that you must attend, per the contract you signed. Otherwise, colleges give information about accepting or rejecting the offer of admission, deadlines for paying a deposit, etc.
Rejection— the application is over, and there is no opportunity for appeal.
Waitlist— the college likes you, but isn't ready to commit. For top colleges, waitlists can include thousands of students, ranked. Though colleges won't tell you where you are on the waitlist, so it's best not to pin your hopes on getting that unexpected offer of admission.
Deferral— if you applied early, a deferral isn't an acceptance or a rejection. A deferral means that the college will review your application again in the regular decision round.

Supplementary Submission

Should you be waitlisted, it might (might!) be helpful to update colleges on what you've been up to. This is when students who do Senior Projects can shine, showing colleges the independent research, work, or creative endeavors they are engaged in.

Final Decision

Eventually, students are notified or acceptance or rejection off the waitlist, and the dust settles on all of the college applications.