How and Who Gets in to Selective Schools

Recently I was asked to answer the question on Quora.com: How do I get into Duke? Like the question about Harvard I posted last week this question, asked in a general way via social media, will not elicit some secret formula for success.

The way to get into the world's most selective schools is pretty simple: be better than almost all the world's population at the things schools look for: academic program, grades, scores, activities, recommendations, and essays. 

Despite the humanist narrative that is often told in information sessions at selective schools in which, once upon a time, great amounts of time and effort were put forth in the evaluation process of individual applictions, the math doesn't add up. What does this mean? If an admission officer has to evaluate 25-50 applications a day (and this is fairly standard at selective schools) how much time can one devote to each applicant? Let's say that the officer needs to evaluate 30 applicants a day (and this is a fairly low number). How long would this take? If the admission officer is focused and devotes 15 minutes to each application then the answer is 7.5 hours. 

Of course, an admission officer is doing more each day than reading applications. There are emails, and meetings, and a whole host of other duties an individual admission officer might have. Any time devoted to other than reading or eating will extend the day well beyond 8 hours. And this is typical. Reading season is long and arduous, but admission people learn, early on, to make quick reads. For those applicants who do not have the numeric rubrics and are not in a special recruiting group, 15 minutes is often a luxury. In other words, all the hours of classes, tests, test prep, essay writing, activities and much else is evaluated in the time it takes to watch the latest Daft Punk video on YouTube. If this sounds cruel it is not meant to be, just informative. People make more important decisions in even quicker blinks of the eye than this. Resumes do not take nearly as long to evaluate. 

Nevertheless, there are ways of demonstrating attributes to admission officers that will help an individual applicant, but finding out which ones in part depends on the group one is a part of. If this sounds paradoxical it is. Admission is largely done with group rubrics in mind rather than individual attributes. But if one knows which group one is in, then this information helps in the strategizing for gaining acceptance.

What follows is a brief summary of a the selective admission rubrics. In subsequent posts I will try to be specific about many of the things that a student can do to stand out in ways that will help an individual who is also and always a member of a group.

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Getting into Duke, or any highly ranked school, is now a matter of doing due diligence. By this I mean you have to be strategic. The "I" you refer to cannot be generic. You have to convince a small group of people who are far too busy that your credentials and profile will add to the mix of students they wish to enroll. First, you have to see know if you can fit in any of the 'special' categories. Are you an athlete, a legacy, an underrepresented student? Are you from a geographical area where they don't see many applications? Are you a potential development case? Do you have a special talent in the fine arts (creative writing does not count, alas)? Have you participated in high level research in the sciences? Have you contacted a faculty member there to tell them you have a passion in the field and that you might be able to help them with their research? Have you contacted the person in charge of reading applications in your region? Have you written essays that will stand out? Have you tried to use connections you might have to get to people at Duke who might be able to get you on a list of special people for them to look out for? 

These are just of few of things you should be asking. If you want to get  grittier and want to get into Duke at any cost, then you have to consider making sure you don't say anything accurate about yourself that will hurt your chances. For example, if you are Asian and you put premed or business as future interests, then you better be so exceptionally qualified by your numbers and recs that they simply can't say no. But they do say no to lots of people in this category so be careful about what you choose to tell them.

Some of the most expensive private counseling groups want to get a hold of you early (9th grade) so they can shape your activities so that they appeal to the admission committee. If you are far along in high school, then what you need to do is something that virtually no one else who has applied has accomplished. This is actually easier than it sounds if you are absolutely determined to get into a school. But again, you have to get past the initial barriers. If you are not an academic star and if you don't fit into the special categories outlined above, your chances of getting accepted are slim.