Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell
I want to believe this, but I find it difficult to do so. There isn't much that I remember from college applications that would allow colleges to collect that information to get to know a student beyond their grades. The essay is just about it, which is painfully short and usually highly edited by English teachers. The only other thing is you can list clubs and sports, but I know plenty of kids who put down clubs on their applications that they only were a part of for one meeting.
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Admissions offices consider what students say about themselves (their essays), what their teachers say about them (their recommendations), and what others say about them (their interviewers). They also look at how these narratives fit together and any commonalities or differences between them, and they use this to develop an understanding of who the student is as a person.
Not every school does it exactly the same way, but I believe this is the general idea for many schools. It is relatively easy to see through students who try to "pad" their resumes, and a lot more goes into the decisions than just raw numbers. I am speaking from experience both as an alumni interviewer for my school and a scholarship judge for a number of organizations.