Case Study: Who Got In and Who Didn't

Written by my colleague Pamela Kwarter, an Independent Educational ConsultantAll last week, I was in an IECA National Conference, which was terrific as usual. I learned so much about what colleges are looking for, how to best advise students who are not ready for any of the various aspects of college, got still more advice on testing and submitting scores, helping my graduate school applicants, and more. But our last session on Friday was particularly interesting. Hearing MIT and Williams College admissions officers do case studies with us proved what we already know (and what I already tell families): there are so many exceptional applicants that colleges cannot accept them all.Here’s Case A: Was he/she accepted by MIT or not?

• Private high school in suburban Colorado. • Valedictorian. Educated parents, separated • Perfect testing. 18 AP courses: Through junior year, all scores of 5, except AP Spanish 4 • Took AP Calculus BC as a freshman (score of 5) • Chemistry teacher wrote glowing rec: “Best student in 25 years.” History/psych teacher wrote a good, but more of lukewarm recommendation. • Conducted research in Finland over the summer • Received additional evaluation from the Finland professor: fine letter, but no new revelations • Applicant mentioned they had “discussions” with three MIT professors; MIT doesn’t know what that means & admissions didn’t hear from professors. • Loves playing soccer, referees. Lots of community involvement. • Developed a Science Olympiad program in city schools as VP of the NHS • Would like to major in chemistry, electrical engineering or energy technology • Has conducted energy research at a local university • Co-founded an app development company; received some venture funding. • Academic all-state in tennis in Colorado. • ISEF – made it to the finalist level. Received a grand award in Chemical Energy (21 categories—he got the top award in his category) • The MIT alumni interviewer raved about him. • He submitted a “maker portfolio” (projects he worked on). MIT faculty said it was fine, but not exceptional. Typically, faculty/alumni can review the portfolio.

I’ll end the suspense: the student was deferred, then waitlisted, then denied. Some colleagues were angry about this. What more can a student do? Another student who was admitted was nearly equally as impressive, but exhibited stronger character traits of “compassion and inquisitiveness,” and was a first generation college student with fewer privileges than the first applicant. I encourage students to express character in addition to earning strong numbers. For elite colleges, that means going beyond serving at a soup kitchen and creating/participating in opportunities to better the lives of others at the non-profit or professional level.The admissions reps said it best: don’t look for the admissions process to be fair. They said, as I always do, that students like these will go on to have great success. Where they go to school barely matters: they create their colleges’ headlines.