The Gatekeepers by Jacques Steinberg #3

Miscellaneous thoughts from the next section of The Gatekeepers:

As I read more and I see how the admissions officers consider the quality of the high school; either high, low, or unknown, I find myself wondering if I'll read about DHS sometime in the future.

The Gatekeepers not only follows the admissions officers, but the stories of several students.  One of them, a strong academic and non-academic received a 9 for 'personal' and 8's in many other categories was marked as 'admit' by Ralph and then Ralph crossed out the lines for the second reader, signaling that he thought the student was a shoo-in.  After going to the Dean of Admissions' desk the application was marked with an 'A' so that a student recruit would know to contact that student.  Although colleges long ago agreed never to tell a student from the main round of applications that they're accepted before the regular notification date, but the 'A' on the application is a note so that the admissions office student recruit to give little hints to that student that the school (in this case Wesleyan) wants the student to come to their school.

Since many people look at statistics as a decision of where to apply, and potentially where to accept, getting a good review by U.S. News can have a huge impact on who (and how many who's) apply to that college (as well as also potentially impacting a school's ability to get donations from alumni), some schools are now rejecting top applicants who look like they wouldn't attend if accepted because that way the school can increase its yield (the percent of accepted students who attend).

Another story that caught my eye was one of a girl from a high end school called Harvard-Westlake (no connection to the University) who had missed her alum interview.  Since this girl was good friends with her counselor and her counselor was good friends with Ralph this girl was able to get on the phone with Ralph and explain that a miscommunication had caused the mix-up.  Ralph assured the girl that it was of no great concern which seems interesting to me since many schools that I've heard of place high importance on their interviews.  This again makes me wonder how DHS compares with other high schools from across the country since I doubt a DHS counselor would be able to make this happen (not that I doubt the quality of the DHS college counselors).