Day Two is in the books

Our second day of committee has wrapped up with decisions made on another 300+ applications. My day was dedicated to the evaluation and discussion of international applications. Michelle, Karen, and I were holed up with laptops, printed reports, peanut M&Ms, and of course lots of files.

What are we looking at? What are we discussing? With our international applicants a lot of time is devoted to making sure we have a full understanding of the curriculum and grading system of the country and that we are giving a equatable review to each file. As you might imagine when considering candidates from countries such as Bangladesh, Bolivia, Botswana, and Brazil within an hour's time there's a lot to wrap your brain around. And yes we were discussing files by country:)

What's most important to discuss? We want to be sure that students have the appropriate background to do the work at WPI, but also are considering what they will contribute to the WPI community and how academically competitive they are within the applicant pool.

How much time do we spend discussing a candidate? It can be as short as a minute or two, or stretch to 7 or 8 minutes for more complicated discussions.

Do we all agree on who to offer admission to? Sometimes;)

Day three will be here before we know it!!

Ed