We've got the stats for you on the Class of 2003. As dean of undergraduate admissions at Stanford University, she knows better than most that there's a right way and a wrong way to apply to college. Her desk has been crossed by thousands of documented examples of the former. Those applications have showcased valedictorians with glowing recommendations, athletes and musicians with compelling personal essays, precocious teens who'd scouted out their top Top 10 college picks by freshman year in high school. Most are good people in a difficult position.
Someone has to make the hard decisions.
I want to think well of them, but I've seen cases in which fine applicants may have been hurt by capricious admissions choices. No used car salesmen would give an admissions dean the time of day. They screw up lives and there's no court of appeal. She talks about a scramble the night before her college applications were due a little over two decades ago. She'd barely started her essay.