“Fit” from an admissions officer’s perspective

An insider’s take on navigating the complexities of the admissions process

Sometimes when it comes to college admissions, families put the cart before the horse: students get their heart set on being accepted to a particular school, then try to fashion themselves in the image of that school.

Letting the horse pull the cart is clearly the much more effective approach: students should pursue excellence in their studies and activities, and seek to build a personal narrative around what gives their lives context and meaning. From there, the college process becomes about finding a school that is the right fit for the person they are becoming.

Working from this perspective ultimately leads to happier students, because they are matriculating in universities with the resources and environment to fuel their personal growth. It also leads to better college admissions outcomes: if a student is truly a good fit for a school, that school is much more likely to accept the student.

Jay Bacrania, owner and CEO of the academic consulting firm Signet, and Valerie Marchand Welsh, a former admissions officer and college counselor, dig into the idea of “fit” and what it really means.

How do you define fit for students in the college process? What does it look like from a student’s perspective?

Fit is admittedly a hard thing to try to describe for a student. If you do a Google search you’ll find some standard advice out there, but I think it’s only when a student starts stepping onto campuses that they fully realize what fit means. From a student’s perspective, fit is a collection of the factors that give a college its own unique character.

Some of these factors are tangible and easy to understand (i.e. an urban campus vs. a rural one). Others are more challenging to explain (i.e. the energy on campus during the academic year), but are definitely an important part of the college experience.

Students should be assessing schools for qualities such as:

√ Geographic location

√ Rural vs. urban campus

√ Climate/weather

√ Proximity to home

√ Type of school

√ Size of school

√ Academic programs and majors available

√ Sports and other traditions

√ Energy or vibe on campus

I always tell families that while the colleges in your local area might not be the schools your student wants to go to, it’s wise to use your backyard to get a sense of what various kinds of college campuses feel like. Check out a large public university, a tech institution, and a small private school (provided they’re nearby); these “college types” will give your student lots of information about what specifically they’re looking for in a college that’s a good fit.

Keep in mind that parents and students may not always agree on these factors (particularly distance from home!) and that’s okay. These visits can be useful in opening up a bigger conversation within families.

What does fit look like from a college’s perspective? How do admissions officers define fit?

Colleges are looking for students who reflect what the school wants in its community and in its classrooms. Every school, and often each department within each school, has its own goals and values that direct admissions officers and help them determine which students would be a good fit.

Summer is when schools and individual departments are defining their priorities and goals for the following year. Although admissions officers have some flexibility to present candidates they think are a good match, there is a structure provided to them that comes from above. Grades and test scores that match the expectations of the school are usually a requirement, especially for selective colleges.

Honestly, it can sometimes be difficult for students to know what’s going on inside departments, even if they have done significant research on the school. A department may be in the middle of shifting what they’re looking for in students, and in that case the current student population wouldn’t necessarily reflect the direction admissions is heading.

If colleges are making the right decisions for themselves and the students, then they are making the best decisions for everybody. The school may have greater insight than a student, for example, about the course of a particular academic program. While a student might think the program is a great fit, someone more familiar with the curriculum might realize that the program is actually too rigorous or challenging for that student, based on their transcripts.

You talked a bit about how colleges selfidentify what would be a good fit, and how sometimes there are considerations students won’t be aware of. Can you describe some ways students actually can tune in to what colleges are looking for in terms of fit?

Absolutely. There are several ways students can do this.

Listen to the admissions officer’s spiel. Admissions officers are trained to talk about specific outcomes for students who attend their schools, and to emphasize specific qualities or characteristics that embody the mission and values of their college. Students who are listening closely will be able to read between the lines to see how the school identifies itself. These talks are often short, given at fairs with a lot of students and limited time, so admissions officers tend to be fairly direct about what they’re looking for in order to attract students who are a good fit to submit applications.

Look to alumni examples. When a college gives presentations or sends out promotional materials, they often highlight alumni profiles to show the value of getting an education from their institution. The examples they choose to promote can indicate to students what the school’s values are, what they’re most proud of, and why. That might trigger a continuing conversation that a student can have with the school. A student might point to the examples provided and ask “Are you looking for more students like this? Why was this student important to your university?” in order to learn more.

Reach out via email or phone. It can be really challenging to have in-depth conversations at college fairs, because admissions officers are totally swamped. However, a student can definitely reach out with questions over email (to that officer or the office in general). Officers are often too busy to meet with students when they are visiting campus, but finding ways to engage with current students can be an avenue for asking these kinds of questions as well, and students often work in admissions offices answering phones.

Use student or department blogs. Admissions offices often publish regular blogs, some by staff and some by students. Your student can learn plenty about academics, campus life, extracurricular activities, sports, and even specific departments through these posts. Blogs provide a great window into the experience of life at that college, and also demonstrate what’s important to the students and the school itself.

All of this information can also help students write strong supplemental essays that demonstrate they’ve done their due diligence and homework on the college, beyond a campus visit and looking through the website.

When you were reading applications, what were some specific ways you assessed fit?

I’ve alluded to this, but the two main aspects we looked for were academic fit and cultural/ values fit.

Academic fit: The obvious part of academic fit is whether a student’s grades or test scores match up with what the college expects its applicants to have. But academic fit can also be more subtle.

A student might be applying for an engineering program, but the admissions office, who knows the curriculum, can see that the student doesn’t have the right science path to be successful. Maybe they needed a higher level of physics in high school in order to be on track with the other college freshmen. It’s not the stu- dent’s fault that they either didn’t have this information or didn’t fulfill these requirements. Not being the right fit doesn’t mean anything about a particular student or their abilities, it just means that the school is not certain the student will be academically successful in their programs.

Cultural/values fit: A university often wants its students to engage in their community in a particular way, and the individual student’s goals may not fit in with that vision. If a student is articulating similar values to the ones the college holds, that will resonate with an admissions committee. If they talk about taking specific skills from their degree and how they will use their education, that may or may not align with the values of the department or university. If it aligns, that’s a good fit.

Admissions officers learn a lot from how a student talks about what they’re interested in, what they’ve done, and how they describe their ambitions and goals. Students definitely should talk about their interests in really specific ways, whether those are academic, extracurricular, or community-minded; both colleges and students benefit from finding the right fit.

Can you give an example of a great fit student?

A student who is a great fit offers specific details of their experiences and what they are looking for that resonate with what the school wants. When a student is deeply passionate about a school, that shines through in every aspect of an application.

I have definitely read applications where the student fit what the school was looking for in terms of transcript, great teacher recommendations that show engagement, etc., but they didn’t do anything to distinguish themselves. Many students meet those qualifications, and in those cases we use essays and personal statements to understand who would be the best fit.

Without repeating what was on the website or seeming like they were giving us what we wanted to hear, certain students told us through their own eyes how they saw themselves on campus, in a way that matched with the things they had been involved with during high school.

Can you give an example of a student who might be a good student but a bad fit for a school?

Parents often look up a college’s stats (GPA, scores, students’ background) and think, “My student had these qualifiers or exceeded them, why weren’t they accepted?” It can definitely feel like the idea of “fit” moves the needle to things that families can’t see or fully grasp It can actually be heartbreaking to read through an application where you know how amazing a student is great grades, excellent teacher recommendations, and they’ve really thrown themselves into the application but at a certain point the school can only admit so many students. Sometimes students have done everything right, all the things that they possibly could, but their application is just not meeting something that the university is looking for.

In that case the student might be denied or deferred. Those cases are the most difficult for an admissions officer, especially if they have communicated or developed a relationship with that student along the way.