subject: How A College Evaluates Applicants [print this page] Universities and colleges all provide lightly different guidelines for assessing applicants, though one thing stays firm across the board: the admissions officers typically make it as a rule to give each applicant a fair examination. University and college admissions staffer are devoted to ensuring each student applying to the college gets equal treatment in the process of evaluation. Therefore, each student applying to a college or university is guaranteed his/her application will get a full review by admissions offices. After the first review, applicants are weighed differently when the admissions process goes on.
Most universities and colleges have unwritten norms for their schools. It means that they have minimal requirements and demands for GPA as well as standardized test scores potential students are to meet. Surely, as in all university and college admissions, there are exceptions to the rule. Actually, admissions officers review every application in a careful manner, and will excuse a lower test scores or GPA if there is a reason to do this.
In general, after the initial review, the students meeting the minimal academic demands will go on in the college admissions process and the students that don't will be put aside. Certainly, the group moving forward almost always has more appropriate applicants than the spots in the future class.
Whittling away the group of appropriate applicants is a difficult task and each university and college has different processes for choosing which students to select. The bottom line is that it is in these last rounds of the college admissions process each prospective student's application is provided the most scrutiny. University and college admissions officers review essays as well as personal statements in a careful way, evaluate every student's educational record and look at recommendation letters.
Typically, the admissions staff pays special attention to each applicant's course load plus course selection, as well as puts emphasis on the capability to express himself articulately in writing.
