Admissions Review
What admissions officers actually look at — holistic review, demonstrated interest, hooks, and more.
16 terms in this category
Holistic Review
Holistic review is an admissions approach in which colleges evaluate the entire applicant (grades, test scores, essays, activities, recommendations, and personal background) rather than relying on any single metric.
Demonstrated Interest
Demonstrated Interest is the signal a prospective applicant sends to a college, through visits, emails, info sessions, and application behavior, that they genuinely want to attend.
Legacy Applicant
A legacy applicant is a student whose parent or grandparent attended the college they're applying to, a status that historically provided an admissions advantage at many US private universities.
Ivy Plus / HYPSM / T20
Ivy Plus, HYPSM, and T20 are informal tier labels for the most selective US universities: the 8 Ivy League schools plus a short list of equally elite non-Ivy institutions.
Spike vs Well-Rounded
In US college admissions, 'spike' refers to a student who has gone exceptionally deep in one area or skill, while 'well-rounded' refers to a student with broad strengths across many areas. At the most selective US universities since the late 2010s, spikes are increasingly favored over well-rounded applicants.
Activity List (10-slot)
The Activity List is the Common Application section where students list extracurricular activities, work, and other commitments. It is limited to 10 entries with 150 characters per description and 50 characters per role title.
Extracurricular Activities
Extracurricular activities ('ECs' or 'extracurriculars') are anything a high school student does outside required academic coursework: clubs, sports, arts, jobs, volunteer work, personal projects, family responsibilities. They form one of the four pillars of US college admissions alongside grades, test scores, and essays.
Reach, Target, and Safety Schools
Reach, match, and safety schools are informal categories that describe how likely an applicant is to be admitted: reach (unlikely but possible), match (plausible), and safety (highly likely).
Yield Rate
Yield rate is the percentage of admitted students at a US college who actually accept the offer and enroll. It influences how a school manages admissions decisions, including its preference for binding Early Decision applicants and demonstrated interest signals.
Acceptance Rate
Acceptance rate is the percentage of applicants a US college admits in a given year, calculated as (admitted students) ÷ (total applicants). It's the number everyone fixates on and almost nobody uses correctly.
Admissions Officer
An admissions officer (AO) is a US college employee who reads applications, evaluates candidates, advocates for them in committee, and decides which students get admitted. AOs are usually assigned to specific geographic regions, including international territories.
International Student
An international student in US college admissions is any applicant who is not a US citizen or permanent resident. This category carries distinct admissions rules, financial aid policies, and visa requirements.
Ivy League
The Ivy League is a group of eight private US universities in the northeastern United States (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Penn, Brown, Dartmouth, and Cornell), originally founded as an athletic conference in 1954 but now globally synonymous with elite American higher education.
Public Ivies
The Public Ivies are a group of US public state universities considered comparable to the Ivy League academically, at much lower in-state tuition. For international students, though, they are usually full-pay and surprisingly expensive.
SFFA v. Harvard
SFFA v. Harvard is the 2023 US Supreme Court decision that ended race-conscious admissions at US colleges, ruling that Harvard's and UNC's affirmative action programs violated the Equal Protection Clause. The decision reshaped how every US college now reviews applications, including those of Asian applicants.
Alumni Interview
An alumni interview is a conversation between a US college applicant and a graduate of that college, arranged after submitting an application. Many selective schools use it to add a human dimension to the file and sometimes to evaluate fit. The interviewer writes a short report that goes to the admissions office.