How do admission board evaluate your applications

We often do a lot of research into how to write your essays or how to make your applications better, reading thousands of blogs, enquiring with all your friends who are currently studying MBA etc. Well this blog will give you a basic understanding for optimising your application. If you are giving your 100% into your application, one should also know what the people who are evaluating it are looking out for. In this blog we would be noting all points based on general research about how the admission boards and committee evaluate your application and what they look out for.

Admission boards have a formal training and knowledge of how education systems all around the world works; they often spend some time to make themselves aware before reviewing the applications. They are professionals working every year with thousands of applications which is why they know just by reading a few lines of the application whether they want to read ahead or not. Hence they have a sharp eye for their requirements from a student. Scoreleap is the best gmat online coaching that helps you with all aspects of the application.

Building your application -

Now one thing we all know is that schools want to get to know the real you. The admissions committees are sharp and swift. They’ve been at this a long time, so they will see through hyperbole, or flat out lies, designed to make you look better.

Honest storytelling is what you have to aim for. Speak in your voice and describe your life’s journey. Mention the skills and talents you have with the ups and downs that you have faced while practicing them. Apart from that look out for all typos and grammatical errors and go through your essay thoroughly. Scoreleap helps students in learning and building a strong application.

Customise and write personal essays for each college. Each college has their own motto and values, do your research into it and add those to your essays.Schools want to know what it is about their program that attracts you.

Staff and decision making of the - Admission Board Committee-

Now in the digital age, the sorting of applications is mostly done by the computer generated programmes that the college has. So what role does the admission committee play? They read the first round of an application before it arrives in a committee setting. GPA and test scores matter a lot while judging your application, it can be the sole reason you are denied, but at the top universities in the U.S. they will never be the sole reason you are accepted.

Now at prestigious colleges - particularly state colleges and universities where the applicants are in plenty they use a formula based on a combination of the applicant's grade point average, test scores and other key information.

The final decision of admission post the evaluation of applications is not always taken by a single person. To ensure fairness in the selection process, colleges and universities rely on input from a group of reviewers who can bring different perspectives. The comments by each member on the application are recorded in a file. Generally the admission manager appointed by the university takes the decision as to acceptance of an application however everyone on the board votes according to their judgements and come to a mutual consensus.

However, one thing I’d like to mention here is the committee does not read the whole application in its entirety, just the key factors and certain aspects as they do their evaluations to vote an applicant . It’s now in the hands of the graduate school admissions counselor who read the application initially to present the student to their colleagues and to act as the student’s advocate.

Now each college follow a different process but usually you can break them down in these following stages -

  • Sorting of the application
  • Reading Process
  • Committee Evaluation
  • Final decision

Generally Involves 2-3 stages involving individual reading where the officer reads the applications at leisure and carefully adds the summary gists and their notes to the applications to the second third reads done by the committee to screen out the applications.

Major takeaways -

Now that we spoke about the process there are a few takeaways that you have to keep in that is -

Not all colleges have a holistic approach, a few take final decisions on academics to and a few on your profiles if you have extraordinary performance and experience.

Make your applications a quick read highlighting all the important points so that it becomes easier for the officers to read and analyse.

Don't spend much time researching on how each college evaluates a basic understanding given by this blog is enough, you should follow what your inner self is saying while building the application and find your real voice.

In this matter, Scoreleap has experts who help students know what exactly they need to do and mentor them at every step from the best online prep of the GMAT/GRE exam and application to admission. The mentors at Scoreleap are dedicated to getting the best out of every student, making the best outcomes with the GMAT prep course.