Cornell (Johnson) 2012 - Calling All Applicants

Would anybody happen to know whether or not deployed military applicants are typically lumped with international applicants? I guess we would be considered "overseas", but I'm not sure if this might be why I haven't received an invite yet.

No news from Cornell. Under review since 10/25. I guess its time to move on... best of luck everyone!!

Cheers!
lseguy

I went under review on 10/20 and still haven't heard anything. Do you really think they finish the application reviews that quickly? I assumed with the level of scrutiny of such a highly ranked school, it would take them awhile to get back to most applicants.

Walk us through the life of an application in your office from an operational standpoint. What happens between the time an applicant clicks ‘submit’ and the time the committee offers a final decision (e.g. how many “reads” does it get, how long is each “read,” who reads it, does the committee convene to discuss it as a group, etc.).

I take this aspect very, very seriously. We look at everyone twice – regardless of TOEFL, GMAT, work experience, GPA. There is nothing in your file that indicates that you won’t get read twice, except for an incomplete file.

So basically, say you hit the submit button yesterday. We take your $200 and it gets deposited. When my team came in this morning, we printed out your application and put it on the shelf. We wait for your other materials – we go online and get an official copy of your GMAT score, put your recommendation letters in your file, etc.

When your application is complete, it goes to one of two or three groups. The first read is done by either one of my readers (I have two paid readers), one of my professional team at the associate level or higher, or one of my 50 JAG students. JAG stands for Johnson Admissions Group – a select group of second-year students committed to assisting in the recruiting and evaluation of applicants. Many of them will do a first read.

We look for about 22 different variables associated with your application. One of my readers makes a recommendation – either “yes, interview” or “no” or “can’t decide.” After the first read is done it goes on a separate shelf and one of my professional team takes a second read. If they agree and both people who’ve reviewed the application say yes, we send out an invitation to interview. If they can’t agree we take it to committee. Or we deny.

My committee meets twice a week, for anywhere from 30 minutes to eight hours. It’s a group of eight and we will come to a consensus – it is not a vote – as to whether or not to invite to interview or deny. Once there’s a decision the file goes back to the admissions staff, who will contact the student and invite them to interview. The prospective student gets to pick a slot that fits with their schedule. Once the student is interviewed, the interviewer – one of my team – makes a recommendation: don’t recommend, recommend with reservation, recommend, recommend with confidence, or highly recommend.

As a benchmark, highly recommend is maybe 1 in 50 or 60 applicants. That is literally saying to the committee, “This person is an absolute rock star we have to have them.” Recommend with confidence is a student saying, “Yes, I want this person in class with me next year.” Recommend with reservation is “There’s something that doesn’t click or doesn’t sound right to me.” And don’t recommend is “no way, no how, not a chance.”

We usually get a three- to four-page dossier of the interview with a recommendation. The interviewer picks one of the five designations and then it goes to committee and we talk about that student and decide whether or not to make that offer. I want to make it clear that there is no vote – this is not a voting system. We are going to talk about you and decide whether you are a good fit for Johnson. I think it’s fairly callous to be voting on someone’s future.