We've made it to Annapolis, and have already dived into the files.
The FSC convened at 1:30 this afternoon, sitting in a circle in one of the hotel's "ballrooms" (not as grand as you're imagining) for an hour-long discussion of the reading process. There are 18 of us -- about half are previous Truman Scholars, and the rest come from a variety of policy, educational, and foundation backgrounds. NAFAns might recognize Jennie LaMonte from Mitchell, for example. I knew a few of the Trumans from having met them at TSLW in the past when they were Senior Scholars, but knew very few of the others in the room when we introduced ourselves. Interestingly, three of the FSC members are from the admissions staffs of some of the top law schools in the country.
The group conversation was freewheeling, focused somewhat on the sample cases we read, but also talking us through the process of reading. My "conservative reading" was clearly too much so, as I scored the files 2-4 points lower, on average, than almost everyone else did, and my 0.5 score was pointed out to the amusement of all. I may have wrested the title of "dreamkiller" from last year's apparent title-holder. The good news, though, was that my recommendations of finalist vs. non-finalist were not out of line with all the others', and that's the really important part -- determining who moves on from here.
We have 597 files to read and score. They have been split into 16 regions, and we are instructed to attempt to select up to 11 finalists from each region. Each region has been pre-assigned to a 3-person team of readers. The regions are geographically arranged and are are called by the city in which finalists interview. Regions range from a high of 49 applicants (the region my team starts with, incidentally), to a low of 23 applicants (the region my team reads second, incidentally), but all will have about 11 finalists emerge from the pool -- that region with 23 may have significantly fewer, depending on the quality of the pool. Each three-person team has a "box captain," an experienced reader who organizes the team, keeps us on-schedule, and verifies that all of our review comments are complete and are helpful to Tara when she has to give feedback to FacReps. My team has been assigned three regions, with a total of 103 files.
The orientation was pretty informal. There is a feeling that it's hard to train someone to read these files -- that you just have to dive in and experience it, that you'll learn what you are looking for in your gut, and that this is a subjective process, and that's OK. Leadership, in particular, was pointed out as an area in which you have to go by intuition. "Read it as a novel," we were told (a piece of advice that I actually found quite helpful -- the candidate's story has to make sense, compel you forward, and engage you). And -- much to my surprise -- "We have no GPA guidelines." I had to raise my hand on that one -- really? NO GPA guidelines? "No, none....but you're not going to see a lot of people below a 3.5, and rarely below a 3.2." The key, instead, is that the candidate's grad school proposal needs to match up with their academic record.
A FacRep emailed me to ask what the one discretionary bonus point is supposed to be used for. It's discretionary. We're not given guidance. I have given a bonus point twice so far -- once to a non-traditional student who I wanted to reward (was not named a finalist anyway), and one to a student who "felt like a 7.5" to me but only scored out as a 6.5, and I wanted to make sure that he ended up as a finalist (he did).
After the orientation, we headed to our rooms to read. This is a very different experience than reading for Madison or Udall, where we were all in the same room at 6' conference tables, all facing the front of the room. Here, we each have a room -- imagine your typical Marriott hotel room, take out the King-sized bed, and insert a 6' round table with three chairs around it. That's what we are reading in. We're isolated from all of the other teams, but do see them at mealtimes and occasionally in the snack room to get some coffee.
The first region we are reading has three states in it, unevenly distributed -- 3 from State A, 16 from State B, and 30 from State C. We started with State A. We each read one of the files, then swapped so that each file got a second read. One of the files was significantly better than the other two, so we named it as a finalist from that state -- we are supposed to have more than one finalist per state as possible, but it just wasn't in this state. My teammates were initially concerned because there was an apparent split between my score and the other score on a file, but it was just a case of me not yet understanding the rating system -- we were in complete agreement that the candidate was not a finalist, despite my scoring it as a 6.0. One state done! One finalist selected!
We also read the second state -- same method. Every file gets two reads and scores, and a third read if the first two deviate from one another. There were two files that really stood out (one of which I read, the other of which I did not), and we have decided on them as finalists. Of the remaining 14, I would say that about four or five more were OK and are still in the running to be finalists -- and the rest have been determined not to be finalists. We're not making any decisions on that group of "OK files" until we read the third, much larger state. We're rooting for a ton of very strong files out of it to fill the remaining eight finalist spots, but know that some of these OK ones might advance.
What have I learned from reading so far?
1) A sense of passion matters. I remember Louis Blair once saying "I'm looking for students who are piiiissed off." That sense of urgency needs to really leap off the page at you -- why do they do this? What have they done to prove that they care? Have they given thought to what a career in this area looks like?
2) The story needs to make sense. Question 9 - the need of society they want to address - is a turning point in the application. When I get to that point, I should already know what you want to do, and when I read Q9, it shouldn't surprise me at all.
3) Don't set things up in the FacRep letter that aren't borne out in the application. There have been a few letters I have read by FacReps that point out that this student's most impressive leadership activity has been X, and then X doesn't get explicated anywhere in the file. That's frustrating for me as a reader -- I want to learn more!
4) Explain, explain, explain. A lot of these candidates seem to have done really terrific things, but I can't completely tell you what they are. "She transformed our leadership curriculum" doesn't tell me what the leadership curriculum was, what changes she made, why that is important, or what role the leadership curriculum has on your campus. There are a few candidates whose files I have read where I thought, "this campus LOVES this guy -- and I am really not sure why." You want to take the FacRep's word for it, but the proof has to be in the application.
5) GPA really doesn't matter much, as they said in the training. I am spending very little time on transcripts -- I get a sense of the student's smarts from their writing, and the letters of rec are much more illustrative of the student's abilities than are a GPA or transcript. The GPA is part of the overall story, and needs to make sense in the context of the story -- where they have come from, and where they are going.
That's day one. Really just a half-day -- from 2:30 until we knocked off around 6pm. We wade back into them early tomorrow morning. Questions are welcome!
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