How does a Stanford admissions committee vote?

IIn Stanford's admissions office, as we learned it, the decision on an application belongs to a committee and rarely to one person. Most committees had four admissions officers with a senior person, often the dean, presiding. Each reader brought a table of every student they had read, with ratings, school and any flags, and went down the list name by name.

What happens next settles the fate of most applicants in a few seconds, and of the rest in a few minutes of pitch, questions and a vote. Families who understand how that room works end up reading their own child's file very differently.

How files move through a Stanford committee meeting

For most applicants, the reader simply says the name. Colleagues glance at the table, and the reader recommends a denial. That is the fate of most students at these colleges, and it happens in seconds. Occasionally a colleague stops the list to ask why a student with top academic ratings from a hard school is being turned down, and the reader pulls up the summary card to remember why. Files are sometimes revived this way, though not often.

Then come the students the reader wants to discuss, either because they are torn or because they want to champion them. Each gets something like ten to thirty seconds of pitch, read mostly from the summary sheet: the student's point of excellence, a few standout activities, a line of their writing.

Every one of those questions is answerable in advance, in the file itself.

The questions in the room

When a pitch is weak, colleagues fill the silence with questions, and they are predictable. What is her point of excellence. Can you say more about his curiosity. Read me some of their best writing. Is there any texture here. What about that B minus. They say biology, so why only two science AP courses. Was there a weak recommendation. I have a lot of students who look like this one, so why her.

Every one of those questions is answerable in advance, in the file itself. A clear intended field, activities that prove it, one quotable line of writing, a short explanation of a bad grade in the additional information section, and a recommender briefed on what to say all exist to answer them before they are asked.

The vote

After the pitch and the questions, the committee votes. In the office we learned from, four votes or three of four admitted the student. A two-two split meant the waitlist, a deferral or more discussion. One vote or none meant a denial. A tie is a real outcome, and it is why a strong file with one unanswered question so often ends in limbo.