College admissions decisions, especially from more selective schools, can frustrate students, parents and counselors. To an outsider who didn’t read the file or sit in the room while the committee discussed the application, the decisions can seem arbitrary and almost random.
At Collegewise, I get to collaborate every day with our counselors, many of whom used to work at some very selective schools—Caltech, Cornell, George Washington, Harvard, MIT, University of Chicago, Villanova and Wellesley, to name a few. And they’re a representative example that there are fundamentally smart, nice, fair people working in college admissions. And while the decisions they have to make are often difficult and emotional, they’re always made thoughtfully. It’s not random.
This may be of little comfort to families who are struggling to make sense of what can be a very confusing process. But admissions officers have to make difficult decisions based on a variety of factors, some concrete and factual, others on intuition and instinct.
Facts combined with instinct is how most difficult decisions are made, especially when there are plenty of good choices. From choosing which candidate to hire, to deciding whether or not it’s time for you to marry your significant other, what ultimately is the right decision may not seem that way to an outsider.
As students progress through high school, remember that if you work hard and find the right colleges for you, you’ll get your chance to go have four years of college learning and memory-making. Those decisions from schools who say no might not make sense at the time. But you’ll probably be thankful when you’re happy and successful at a place that had the good sense to say yes.