Jury Duty
The first 33 members of the Class of 2016 have been selected. Committee deliberations for Early Decision I got underway yesterday morning and, as my seven-member selection team (one of three for this round) crawls our way through a cart stuffed with blue files with color-coded spines, the embryonic outlines of Tufts' next freshman class--and its personality--are starting to emerge.
It feels like we just finished committee deliberations for the Class of 2015 but that was six months ago. Time flies, as the saying goes. Another admissions cycle is now fully engaged and this week’s committee sessions are the first of many. A few of my colleagues will also be blogging about the mysteries of “committee” but, from my perch in the dean’s chair, here's my two cents as things get underway.
There's really nothing all that mysterious about it, actually. Committee is the process by which we construct a class. One by one, we review the written evaluations we have rendered on each applicant over the last month. Now that the reading process has concluded, we engage in conversations about merit as we debate the relative pros and cons of each applicant.
We’re like a jury weighing the evidence we have been presented. We debate and ponder and scrunch our faces at one another when something is unclear. While we use poetic license to read between the lines, as needed, we can only evaluate what was submitted by a student and his recommenders. If something is missing, it’s not there and we react accordingly. It’s not unlike a teacher grading a paper: the grade reflects the quality of what was included in the assignment. In this case, the application is the assignment and we are the teacher. An “A” equals an acceptance, and our selectivity (demand relative to space) demands that we must be tough graders.
Two of us have read each of the ED files and independently assessed its strengths and weaknesses. That’s an organic cross-check for personal bias (the good kind—we all have our soft spots—as well as the subliminal variety that reflects our personal tastes). It’s a holistic review (we look at the sum of the parts) but it’s unavoidably subjective. That’s what happens when the acceptance rate dips into the low 20s. We must make fine distinctions as we shape the class.
Reading files requires good judgment. When there’s agreement among two readers, that’s telling. And when there’s disagreement, and that happens more often than you might think, those differing views are also instructive and they frame our debate. In fact, sometimes I am the reader and one of the rookies has the temerity to dissent. Such chutzpah! But that’s how our process works. When we’re reading, and when we’re in committee, I am one vote among seven. I am not the king. The majority rules. In committee, each of us must convince a majority of our colleagues about the merits of a file. That’s not always easy but we agree more often than you might think.
Sometimes a decision is obvious. Sometimes it requires a lot of conversation. And sometimes the territory manager (the person who manages application review for a set of states and regions) gets out-voted. I witnessed two cases today in which the territory manager made a recommendation but lost, 6-1 when the vote was called. We’re all good sports about it.
"Merit" takes many forms. Depending on the individual, different manifestations or combinations of merit frame the winning argument. Obviously, academic merit is critically important but, perhaps surprisingly, most of our applicants are qualified for admission. In other words, the numbers certify eligibility.
But the numbers alone do not inform the final decision, although “chancing” on a certain website assumes they do, because so many students share similar data points. Academic achievement—the grades, curriculum, standardized testing--indicates that someone is prepared for Tufts but it doesn’t tell us the whole story about a student’s intellectual curiosity, provocative thinking, originality or leadership in class discussion. Those clues are found elsewhere. And those other clues “count” when it’s time for us to vote. In committee, we discuss the quality of the essays (“What an amazing voice!” someone said today) and recommendations; we muse about extracurricular interests (the usual as well as the unconventional, like the student who told us he collects exotic spices during his family travel as a way of enhancing his culinary impulse) and points of view; and we wonder about how a student will or will not benefit from and enhance our undergraduate community. “Fit” is critical, especially during a binding round like ED.
I won’t lie: “committee" is mentally exhausting, especially when I am chairing the group and must referee strong opinions and personalities. And, from time to time, I must assert institutional priorities that must be kept in mind as we weigh candidacies. I call that the practical dimension of decision-making. It’s not what we want as individuals; we must discern what’s best for Tufts. We’re crafting an undergraduate class with lots of dimensions, not outlining our friend list on Facebook. It can’t be so personal.
It's a long, slow march from file to file, from school to school. We cross state lines and national borders, and we wander across the various academic disciplines as we map the class and its intellectual interests. We are purposeful.
Committee is a necessarily clandestine event, and I think that’s what makes it so “mysterious.” We live in an uber-transparent world and committee seems "secret." But the patina of privacy around the admissions committee is a vital dimension of our work as admission officers. We need a confidential cocoon to debate and deliberate, to see things in context, to match the University's mission with the ideals and attributes of the students who hope to join this community next year. That would be tough to do in an open forum.