Students applying to private schools are entering a world of stiff competition, but there is a reason that admission at such schools is so competitive: Numerous studies have shown that students who graduate from elite colleges and universities earn, on average, 40% more than students who graduate from less selective institutions, and those students are also more likely to attend graduate school. Education is a long-term investment, and those students who hope to go far in life would do well to give themselves an edge in the college application process. Understanding that process is the first step.

Many students and parents wonder: What happens to a college application once it has been mailed? Although there is no one method that all schools use, most elite schools use a similar process. At many Ivy League institutions, they use something called the “docket”. In this system, each member of the Admissions Committee is assigned to a docket, or subcommittee; each docket reviews applications for students hailing from a specific geographical area. Each docket is designed to be roughly equivalent to the other dockets in terms of the number of applicants from that region, so that each subcommittee is reviewing roughly the same number of applications. The dockets are made up of three to six area representatives (admissions officers) and a docket chair (a senior admissions officer), and admissions officers will usually sit on two or more dockets so that they will be able to form comparisons among students from vast geographical lines.

There are a number of odd traits to these dockets. First, it is important to note that students are assigned to dockets based on the location of their high school, not on their state of residency. So, for example, a student who is a New York state resident but who attends a boarding school in Massachusetts would be considered along with the Massachusetts students. Second, the geographical regions for each docket are not necessarily arranged based on proximity. For example, at Harvard, students from Los Angeles are not categorized with other California students; instead, Los Angeles and Hawaii are lumped together to form a docket.

Once the dockets have been arranged, the review process can begin. Each applicant’s folder is read several times. With each reading, the admissions officer comments on the folder’s strengths and weaknesses. Each admissions officer reads every folder from his or her docket, which allows them to present an overview of the relative strengths presented by the applicants in the docket. Once all of the folders have been evaluated, the dockets meet. The area representatives summarize the strengths and weaknesses in each component of the each candidate’s file; they then discuss the applicant and vote on what recommendation to offer the full Committee. These recommendations will be reevaluated, and often changed, several times as additional information becomes available. This ensures that all applications are scrutinized thoroughly and to the same degree. Finally, the area representatives categorize the applicants, taking note of the degree of support for each candidate, into categories such as “clear admits” or “strong rejects”. This allows admissions officers to compare candidates within the same categories from other dockets.

Months after the review process begins, the dockets present their recommendations to the full Committee. The Committee compares all candidates across all dockets, and therefore across geographical lines. This rigorous comparative process strives to be deliberate, meticulous, and fair. It permits extraordinary flexibility and the possibility of changing decisions virtually until the day the Admissions Committee mails out final decisions. This is especially important because the Committee often receives new or updated information on candidates well after the application itself is received.

Ideally, admissions officers prefer to read interview reports as they first read an applicant’s files, but many students still wait to apply until the final deadline, making it virtually impossible for their reports to be available for a folder’s first read. The committee process works best when all reports are available because the area representatives tend to be more tentative in their support for a candidate who is missing critical items, such as teacher recommendations or interview reports.

The biggest lesson to be learned from this information is this: Making admissions officers happy helps a student’s chances for admission, and the best way to please an admissions officer is to make their job easier. Thus, it is absolutely vital that students take great care to submit their applications and supporting documents well ahead of time and that they take a proactive role in ensuring that all necessary information is supplied to the college. Check with teachers to make sure that recommendations are sent on time, check and double check to be sure that test scores have been ordered, and, if mailing any documentation, allow plenty of time for delivery!

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