Steel yourself: this will be a long blog post. It's been a VERY long day of reading -- 7:30am to 6:30pm, with an hour break for lunch. Our team read, scored, and made decisions on 53 files today, of which I read 32. That's not-quite pulling my weight, but one of the other readers on my team is a law school admissions person, so she reads files for a living and is pretty quick at it.
Lessons from today:
1) Questions 7 (leadership) and 8 (public policy) are really key, but 7 is the most important essay in the application to me (other readers might disagree with me on this). I see the questions as asking "what change have you created?" and "what do you care about and why?" If those aren't solid, there isn't a lot of case to be made for advancement.
2) The letter of nomination serves almost as a thesis for the application. It's hard to hide the ball -- all of the letters of nomination are glowing, but sometimes you finish one and notice that, gee, they never mentioned leadership. Then you read the file and, sure enough, there is no record of leadership to speak of. So you read them for what is in there, but also what is not in there.
3) I know most of the time if a candidate might advance in the first few pages. The record of achievement has to be present in Qs 1-6, it needs to be explicated in Qs 7-8, when the application turns to the future in Q 9 it needs to make sense, and Qs 11-14 need to be solid (of these, Q14 has the most potential to impact my opinion). By the time I get to the policy proposal, transcript and letters, I'm just looking to see confirmation of what I already know of the student, and don't read them as thoroughly as the rest of the application.
4) One of my fellow readers said, "Put this in your blog: in their career goals they need to be bold and say that they are going to have an impact. They shouldn't just want to have a job -- tell us what they will achieve in that job. They've been achieving things throughout college, so why won't they continue to achieve them in their careers? They should be ambitious."
5) LOTS of very high GPAs. I would estimate about half are in the 3.9+ range. Very few are <3.7. It's not that Truman has a stated preference for these insanely high GPAs, just that these are the candidates who are showing up on their doorstep.
Now! Details! With Tara's permission, I am going to give you a one- or two-sentence description of each file I read today, without identifying info, along with the score I gave, the other score given by my reading team (in parentheses), and then the outcome of that file at the end.
We started by finishing our region from yesterday. You'll recall that we had one BIG state left -- 30 files in it -- from which we could advance 8 as finalists. I read 19 of those files -- here are my summaries:
1) Passionate, thin record of service & leadership. Came to the passion late, through an internship. Well-done policy with thin sources. 4.0 (3.0)
2) Good kid who cares, but little record of being a change agent. 4.5 (4.5)
3) Activities all over the place - no focus - chosen field for grad degree has no coursework in BA. 3.5 (3.5)
4) Consistent. Some worries about public service commitment, but exceptional leadership skills & an excellent student. 6.5 (6.5)
5) Excellent student with very thin record of leadership & no vision of future as a change agent. 4.0 (4.0)
6) Excellent student, amazing leadership, interests are a little too broad, but clearly a finalist. 7.5 (9.0)
7) Not quite as strong a record of accomplishment, but a phenomenal story and someone you root for. 7.0 (7.5)
8) Borderline finalist. Showed excellent initiative and obviously cares, but focus on issue is overly broad & career path doesn't aim him at outcomes that will create an impact. 6.0 (5.5)
9) Came to college with one passion (not in service) and is bending that into a Truman app. Nothing impressive or convincing. 4.0 (5.0)
10) Personal history makes her passionate about chosen field, but it's not borne out in activities. Application shows a lack of attention to detail, and does not reveal thought and care. 3.5 (4.5)
11) Phenomenal student with no sense of direction,thin record of leadership, only short-term service 2.5 (5.0)
12) Good service, but nothing that popped out of leadership. Didn't see the impact of his work. Reasoning is compelling. 4.5 (7.0)
13) She cares a lot & has stutter-stepped through leadership activities, but I am not sure there is enough here. Her lack of clarity on domestic vs international future & lack of international experience (if she goes that way) is problematic. Close but not quite. 6.0 (7.0)
14) Terrific student with a very thin record of service and leadership. Very little non-academic. 4.0 (4.5, 5.5)
15) Great student who has great passion and some fascinating experiences, but seems to have a lack of results/follow-through. Right on the bubble. 6.0 (5.5)
16) Poor writing skills. leadership isn't creative and doesn't show initiative. Doesn't have a track record in career area. 2.0 (4.0)
17) Terrible start to application -- seems trivial. Picked up at end, but leadership example really hurt. 4.5 (4.0)
18) Average applicant. Poorly-done application. Q9 is total turnaround from earlier interests. 9 through policy is disconnected from rest of application 4.0 (4.5)
19) Lacks innovation & impact. Good passion. Has not achieved significantly, but has an excellent future plan. 4.5 (5.5)
So -- which ones would YOU take? I'll tell you that four of these advanced. Choose yours, then see if they match what we did...
4 and 6 were all easy and moved on as finalists without much discussion. So did three other files that I didn't read. 7 took a couple more minutes, but wasn't too hard. Then we had a big messy middle that included 8, 12, 13, and 15, five files from a state we had read yesterday, and three more from this state that I hadn't read. That's 12 files, and one spot left. About five minutes of conversation got us to 13 and 15 as the top two candidates, but with some disagreement over which was better -- though agreement that both were finalist-worthy. I liked 15 better, but my two reading partners both preferred 13, and I could see that I wasn't going to change their minds. 13 is a finalist, 15 isn't, and won't know how close he was.
Next region!
4 states. 23 files. State A only had 1 applicant; States B and C each had 4; State D had 15. We really want to have at least one finalist from each state, and two as possible (competition! choices!), so those from States A, B, and C were pretty lucky. And with getting to name up to 11 finalists, those in State D were pretty lucky, too. I didn't read the file from State A, but it was advanced by my co-readers.
State B:
20) Phenomenal student with great app (well-advised!). Weaker record of service and leadership. Immensely likable with an outstanding grad school plan. 6.0 (5.0)
21) Over-hyped application with a lot of titles and experiences, but no significant accomplishments or change. Outstanding dedication and passion. A finalist, though I don't care for it. 5.0 (6.5)
My prediction came true -- the others liked 21 much more than I did, and he advanced as the lone finalist from this state. We just couldn't make the case for advancing more than one from this state, unfortunately.
State C (forgot to note co-readers' scores):
22) LOVE her as a person, but she doesn't quite have the background. #14 was fantastic. I'm a big fan! 5.5
23) Very good record of university service, weaker service record, excellent academics and a good future plan with some vision. A solid finalist, but not blowing me away. 6.0
24) Interesting future plans, but not really tied to past, and without a solid record of service or leadership. Unimpressed, though academic record is very strong. 3.5
23 advanced pretty easily. The one other file in this region wasn't too impressive, and we really did want to advance two files...so 22 got through! The other reader on this file felt similarly -- just really, really rooting for this kid.
State D
25) Fantastic student, strong leadership, pretty good service -- all totally disconnected from future goals, and policy statement is on a 3rd topic. 5.5 (6.0)
26) Marvelous person with a great story, but record is thin and I question how much he has accomplished. 5.0 (5.0)
27) Not hugely impressive, but theme is good and future clear. She's set herself up nicely. 6.5 (5.5)
28) No connecting thread in application. Very poor Q14. Good political experience, but that's about it. Tepid letters of rec. 3.5 (3.0)
29) Doesn't hang together. Lots of issues he likes. No direction. Fantastic letters. 5.0 (6.0)
30) Nice kid with an interesting plan, which is disconnected from past. No real direction. Leadership example very weak. 3.0 (2.5)
31) Important role in campus org & has good political experience, but goals are all over the map and very vague. No real reason behind grad school plan. Terrific letters. 5.0 (4.5)
32) Solid app, lots to like here, not over-the-top, but feasible candidate who is diligent & no-nonsense. Mature. Has potential to make quiet but important impact. 6.5 (6.0)
We could name up to seven from this state, but were pretty sure from from the start that we didn't have that many in the pool of 15. 25 and 27 were named as finalists pretty quickly, along with two others I didn't read. 26 and 32 came under serious consideration, along with two other files I hadn't read, but skimmed through enough to have some opinions on. The more we read 26, the more we liked him, and he advanced. That left 32 and the other two, which we debated for about 10 minutes. One of the other two fell away. Should we name both of these final two? We had the space. In the end, 32 was just a solid, solid candidate in ways the other one wasn't, so he advanced as a finalist.
So that's what it is like to read, score, and decide on 32 files in a day. 11 of those 32 became finalists, and I would guess that about five of them will be named as Truman Scholars.
Now: dinner, read (not files!), bed, and our last region in the morning.
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