The Vandy Admissions Blog

Thom June 3rd, 2009

I have three sons, all under the age of three, and I work in admissions.  That means that my ability to make a living depends on the decision-making of 17-year olds, and my ability to get a good night’s sleep depends on the whims of 4-month olds (our twin boys).  I am like the dad in the car commercial from some years ago that wonders out loud while driving his toddler around town, “Now I’m a dad, and it’s my job to tell him, ‘No, that cookie’s fallen on the floor, you can’t eat that . . . when inside my head, I’m thinking - five second rule - that cookie’s still good.’”  I am, like most parents I know, a work in progress on the parenting front.

Watching that move-in video from last week got me thinking about what the parents who read this blog are going through in this process of supporting, and ultimately preparing their child to go off to college.  I think about what my parents did for me when I went off to school.  They had just driven off after hugs and few wetted eyes.  I got back to my room and started up my computer and on my desktop they had each written me a letter.  Each one stated how proud they were of me, and gave advice about what to look out for in the coming years.  I still have those letters.  I loved it so much, in fact, that for each of my sons, I have been writing them letters since they were born.  The thought is that I will someday give them over to them when they go off to college.

So it is with humility that I attempt to offer advice to parents at least 4 times my senior in the parenting biz.  I won’t pretend that I know first hand what it is like to send your child off to college, but I have been a second hand observer to the process, having worked for colleges almost a decade.  The Southern journalist Hodding Carter wrote, “There are two lasting bequests we can give our children: One is roots, the other is wings.”  You’ve given them so much throughout their life, and have taught them well.  Trust them now in hopes that some small portion of what you’ve taught has sunk in, most importantly the love you gave them.

So with that here’s a couple of pieces of advice:

1) Most college students change their major, it’s not a big deal.  Be prepared for some homesickness, it’s also not a big deal.

2) Leave his or her room like it is for a while.  Yes, he or she will be living at college, but that room is still home, and it can be unsettling to come back and see the room has been reacquisitioned by the family.  It’s not a scientific sample or anything, but every friend I had in college that had this happen to them had issues like a magazine rack about it.

3) Come for parent weekend.  You’ll love it.

4) Send care packages, your child will love it.  The Vandy bookstore will even have ready-made packages for you to order in the fall.

5) Consider getting involved in the Vanderbilt Parent and Family Association and stay connected to your son or daughter’s community.  There’s also a parent hotline for any questions that you might have.

Waitlist Update

As of right now, all of the calling from the last wave has concluded and no new calling  is currently being done.  Our waitlist is still active though and we are watching to see how some of the remaining deposits shake out to determine if another wave of calling needs to happen.  That’s all I know right now, and will update when I can.

• Advice for Parents , Waitlist
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Thom March 19th, 2009

There are things in this world that are perceived to be more fascinating than they really are: haggis, turkey bowling, Dancing with the Stars, that game where you spin around on a bat 10 times and wobble toward the finish line - oh, and admissions committees.  For the past two weeks I, along with my fellow Associate Director and Director of Admissions at Vanderbilt, have reviewed the decisions of hundreds of individual students all across the country.  Think of a meeting that lasts 80+ hours long.  Yes, it is that fascinating.

Here’s how it works:

• Each officer brings in a bundle of applications, which at this point have been first read and second read.  Nearly all of them have already been “decisioned” (as we’ve talked before on this blog) and the officer is proposing a decision change.
• In the picture above you see a laptop connected to a monitor.  It displays all 19,300 applications we have received this year, broken out by high school (all 928 pages of them).  It is useful as we progress through each region to view a student presented in committee in the broader context of his or her high school.  The computer is also clutch for hunting down mundane yet (in the moment) pressing matters such as checking the lyrics to Billy Joel’s Allentown in between Eastern PA apps.   Or “How do you pronounce Nacogdoches (TX) and how is it different than Natchitoches (LA)?”   By the way, it’s Knack-a-Doe-Shuss and Knack-a-Tesh respectively.  Ahh Google.
• When there is an individual applicant that needs discussing, the officer presenting in committee will place a summary sheet of that applicant’s grades, test scores (and a ton more)  in the middle of the committee table and begins describing the applicant.  The officer keeps the rest of the file (as you see in the picture) drawing out snippets of the essay, the eca’s, the recs, etc.
• Most of our conversations center along the faultlines between an admit and a waitlist, although we sometimes discuss when it would be best to waitlist a student or simply let them go.  We do not want to be placing students on a waitlist who would never stand a chance of coming off of it.  After the conversation/debate ensues, a decision is rendered.

Today is the final day of committee and decision checking started yesterday.  Decision checking is where we check each file to make sure the decision is recorded in our system correctly.  Letter checking then takes place to make sure that Tim from Toledo doesn’t get Tina from Tacoma’s decision letter.  If all goes like we think it will, letters will be in the mail a week from today.  Stay tuned.

• Admissions Committee , File Reading Explained , Waitlist
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Brad February 24th, 2009

Nashville has plenty of culinary choices. But there is one type of food which is distinctive to Music City: Hot Chicken.

Hot Chicken is southern-style pan-fried chicken cooked in a cast-iron skillet. There is, however, one twist. The chicken is breaded in a super-secret blend of spices which give the chicken its…hot. And trust me, it is spicy. Dangerous even.

The main purveyor of this delight is called Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack. Former Mayor Bill Purcell declared it his favorite restaurant and legend has it that one could garner political favor by stepping up from the milder varieties. The truth is, that I frequently crave Prince’s. Eating it on Tuesday can guarantee that you’ll want it on Wednesday. Fortunately for me, I am eating Prince’s tomorrow. After all it’s a Data Day tradition.

So what are data days? Well, you’re about to find out. Because as much as I’d like to use this blog to promote Hot Chicken, it’s really not the point.

Data Days are the days where we evaluate the overall depth, quality and diversity of our applicant pool just before starting admissions committee.  There are three per year, one for each of the Early Decision rounds, and one for Regular Decision. Thom alluded earlier to the admission officer deadline by which all applications must be first and second read. That date was last Wednesday. Since then, our support staff have been frantically entering decisions (admit, deny, waitlist, or committee)  into our database so we can have a complete look at the pool by Data Day.

Then, using some fancy schmancy reporting tools (we actually use Business Objects, a French data solutions package) the admissions committee will answer some critical questions:

How many students should be admitted?

This number is calculated by taking the number of spots in the first year class and subtracting the total number already admitted during Early Decision. Then, using a yield projection for Regular Decision we multiply to account for students who are admitted but will not choose to attend. From this number we subtract the regular decision students who have already been admitted or will be shortly. The only students in this group are MOSAIC invitees, Scholarship Finalists (Ingram, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Chancellor’s) and recruited athletes.

The final number will be the total number of admissions letters that leave our office on mailing day. You can try to guess the number, but we do not release it publicly. Remember that we keep it intentionally low  to prevent over enrollment. Then we admit from the waiting list to ensure the porridge is just right.

2. How many students can be heard at committee?

An easy calculation. We average about 10 application discussions in a committee hour. With three committees running 6-8 hours every day, five or six days each week  for the next month. According to Amy, our committee guru, we have 330 hours scheduled but may need more or less depending on the answer to the next question.

3. What is the threshold by which any student should gain admission?

Ideally any application that reaches committee will include a compelling discussion and the full spectrum of decision options. Although we love hearing about the incredible, bizarre, hilarious and remarkable things that prospective Vanderbilt students accomplish, it is not useful to spend more time on students who are clearly admissible.

On Data Days we take a statistical snapshot (compiled from the espresso-fueled months of reading) and assume that we can admit most qualified applicants in the highest end of our pool. This process is known in our office as “Commando.”  The origins of the term are hazy, but if I had my guess it dates back to 1645 when Alan Commando, the former Dean of Oxford decided to admit everyone at once. A carnival was subsequently thrown in his honor.

At the conclusion of Data Days, the entire staff receives an email with “Commando Guidelines.” Any applicant who meets the guidelines is gathered, re-read and barring any concerns, summarily admitted. Remember that every last application has been reviewed in full (twice in fact), received hand-written comments, and a decision recommendation. 

The remaining applications are slated for committee review where we will spend the coming weeks discussing everything from extra curricular involvement to grades to curriculum to that essay describing that time you fell offstage at your piano recital.

To a geek like me, Data Days are like Magic Eye posters. For months I’ve closely examined the applicants from Maryland (except Montgomery and Prince George’s counties), Minnesota, Wisconsin, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Alaska. Now I am able to inch backward and see how those students fit into the larger group considered for Fall 2009.  Now it’s time for some Hot Chicken.

Mmm...Hot Chicken

• Admissions Committee , Application Process , File Reading Explained , Uncategorized
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Thom February 16th, 2009

Student workers sorting files before regular decision committee. (And yes, that is a signed picture of Chuck Norris in the background - You want to make something of it?)

Think you’re the only one that gets stressed meeting admissions deadlines?  Our officers are reading their eyeballs out right now, poring over applications trying to meet our own internal priority deadlines.  In our office, we set goals as to when all applications should be first read, second read, and decisioned (more on this term and a minute), etc.  One such priority deadline is coming up this week.  You know how I can tell?  Two things: the accumulation of pizza boxes in the breakroom trash (from after hours dinner breaks from reading) and the copious coffee drinking in the AM from those late night reading sessions.  The reason for these deadlines, what we refer to internally as “pushes,” is so that we can be as informed about the total pool of candidates for each decision round (ED1, ED2, and Regular) before we begin committee.  Vanderbilt has a much bigger Admissions staff than many other schools like us (23 officers that read files), and our officers read considerably less files per officer than many of our peers (sometimes by as much as half).   These elements are by design, as they are intended to increase the depth of our reviews.  However, even with these efforts in place, under the premises of a Gregorian calendar, where time is arithmetically measured and finite, we have to channel our resources to get these letters out the door on time.  At a very high level, our process is built to direct more of these resources (i.e., reading/committee time) to the students who need it most, that being students in the muddy middle of our pool.  

If our applicant pool is a bell curve where there is a small number of students at the very top (the wicked smaaart for you New Englanders & Good Will Hunting fans)  and the very bottom, the majority will fall in the middle, which for Vanderbilt is still is pretty bright, but I digress.  There is a whole group of applicants who on the surface look alike (testing, gpa, class rigor, etc) for whom we spend more time in reviewing their unique qualities (found in their leadership, writing, recs, etc).  Every student who applies to Vanderbilt has their file reviewed (yes, even the non-numeric stuff) by an admissions officer, even the applicant who is clearly not competitive.  But we do reserve our committee time to discussing the students in the middle of our pool. 

To get through all 19,000+ apps, we have to start early.  Which means we may have already read your app some two months ago and it is currently in a “decisioned” status right now.  That means that in our internal system, your application may be flagged as a “hold,” an “admit” or a “deny.”  In a lot of ways, the term “decisioned” is a misnomer.  These are NOT permanent statuses, as they can and routinely do change.  We often relook at these decisions once the pool completes, and we look at new information that arrives from you.  Your officer may have read your file in December, and then you sent in something new, the officer will catch that and look at it to see if this new information changes anything.  This is the primary benefit of a pooled admissions evaluation process (such as what Vanderbilt has), where we try and contextualize each application in the totality of the pool, rather than rolling admissions processes that maintain established admit guidelines (even if only known internally) that adjust as more of the pool becomes known.

Now back to reading.

• Admissions Committee , Application Process , Early Decision , Standardized Testing
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Thom January 20th, 2009

Here’s some calendar items that are going on behind the scenes in our office and at VU:

• Today several of us will meet to discuss the upcoming Early Decision II committee, and get an early aggregate look at the pool.  Based on this we will set our committee schedule (how often we will meet and when . . . it’s really not that exciting). 
• Also today, The Commons Center and the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center will be having public viewings and discussions of Barack Obama’s historic inauguration.
• This weekend is the first of several Blair School of Music audition weekends - good luck to all who are participating.
• Early Decision II committees start a week from this Thursday and will run through that following weekend.

The essential cool things you need to know about the famed music scene in Nashville:

• You can keep up with the newest artists from Nashville and around the U.S. through  The Nashville Scene’s Digital Jukebox. 
• You can literally hear great live music every night in Nashville, and for pretty cheap when you do.
• The Anne Potter Wilson Music Library, in addition to possessing a staggering classical composer and symphonic collection also maintains a large rock, blues, and pop music collection.  From the Beatles, to Radiohead, Chuck Berry to The Shins, it’s all yours for checking out free if you’re a Vandy student, faculty member, alum, or VU staff member (score).

• Admissions Committee , Application Process , Balance , Blair School of Music , Commons , Early Decision , Freshman Commons , Music , Nashville
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