All of Your

Admissions
Questions
Answered
by a
by a Former
Former Stanford
Stanford
Admissions Officer
Admissions Officer

A CRIMSON EDUCATION PUBLICATION

At Crimson, we are lucky to have many About Martin Walsh
team members who are experts in the top
university admissions process. Many of Martin has spent 15 years either evaluating
them are graduates from the Ivy League, applications or counseling students to help
Oxford, and more, and still, others are them achieve their goal of admission to
academics, professors, and PhDs. their dream university.

But one of our most popular and Martin graduated from Santa Clara
experienced experts is Stanford former University with a degree in History.
admissions officer, Martin Walsh. Matin is Additionally, he holds graduate degrees in
well known for his unique insight as to education and law from San Francisco
what it takes to gain admissions to the best State University and the University of
universities in the US, and just as California - Hastings College of Law.
importantly, exactly what goes on behind
closed doors at Stanford’s admissions office "Since leaving Stanford I have
during application assessment time. shared my knowledge with
students, teachers, and
So what are the frequent questions Martin
counselors at international
is asked by prospective top university
admits, and what exactly should you schools in South Korea, Japan,
consider when undertaking the Common China, and Italy. And, I serve as
Application process? an instructor each summer
with the Counselor Training
In this special Q&A, Martin shares his
Center. I enjoy taking some of
unique insights, tips, and tricks as to what it
takes to get accepted to a world-leading US the mystery out of the college
university. If you’d like to learn more after admission process; while also
reading, simply click on the link at the end providing tips, guidance, and
of the Q&A to arrange a free personalized insight to parents, students,
consultation with one of our expert
and teachers."
academic advisors.
01. What is an admissions
officer and what do they do?

So basically, your Dean of Admissions hires

a number of admissions officers (AO), and
then each of those admissions officers are
assigned a region or territory. Your job, as
an admissions officer, is to be an expert on
that territory — to understand the schools,
the curriculum, the quality of the teaching,
and the quality of the students in that
particular territory.

02. What did you look for in a

student when it came to
admitting them to Stanford?

If you're looking at a private university in

the United States, particularly an Ivy
League or Stanford, they're going to be
evaluating your application holistically.  So
when I was considering who should be
admitted to Stanford, I considered the
whole person.

With holistic evaluation, it's good to think of

the applicants as hurdlers, trying to get
over each hurdle along the way. I think
there are three hurdles that you have to
survive to perhaps be admitted to Stanford:

01. Numbers

02. Personal Qualities

03. Choices
03. What do you mean by Intellectual vitality is that wow factor
Numbers, Personal Qualities where you're looking at what the teachers
and Choices? say about the student, what the student
did, combined with what they wrote
Good question! Let me break it down about in their essays. This will vary from
university to university and I think that
for you:
Silicon Valley and Stanford go hand in
hand in the sense that Stanford was
01. Numbers looking for students that were innovative
and entrepreneurial because that was
The first thing we looked at was obviously how the school was structured. It's a
just numbers. Everything started with an slightly open curriculum, students can
SAT, ACT, school report, or transcript move around, explore ideas. Stanford puts
breakdown. With the SAT and ACT results, aside a lot of money for the funding of
you can easily see which group the research.
student lands in comparison to others.
03. Choices
I also would try to match the course
selections with the program of study the This is about the student's choices and the
applicant indicated as a potential major university's choices. Every time you apply,
on their application — which is particularly you're making a choice. It's like you're
important when it comes to courses such choosing to put down computer science
as STEM. In this case for example I would as your major or you're choosing to put
look closely at the student’s math down history as your major, and so the
capabilities, chemistry, physics, things like choice of program of study can absolutely
that. impact your odds of being admitted.

For every 100 applications I'm getting There are certainly some programs that
through, maybe 10 don't survive the are more competitive to get into than
numeric piece of the puzzle. others, and most universities are not
single-door admissions but rather they're
02. Personal Qualities going to read an application based on the
student’s choice of program of study.
This is the part that takes up the most
time, as you really want to understand The other choice is the timing of the
who the student is (if I spent 25 minutes application. Stanford was a restrictive
per application, 15-20 minutes was on this early action school, but there are other
section!). schools that run early decision programs,
and if you're doing your research, you're
In the case of Stanford, we could consider getting a pretty big bump at those
the applicant’s personal statement universities statistically (meaning your
combined with their responses to four chances of admission in early rounds are
other essays, their teacher usually higher than those in the regular
recommendation letters, and their round).
activities (or extracurriculars).
You could do everything right numerically,
An admissions officer will do a deep dive and you could show a lot of vitality and
into these elements to look for what write beautiful essays, but if you're in the
Stanford calls 'intellectual vitality'. This is regular decision pool at a school like
usually easier to recognize rather than Northwestern or Duke where they've
define. We’ll look for a student who already admitted 51 or 52% of their class in
showed leadership in high school, who their early decision round,  even if they
took ownership of their learning. It always love you, they may decide there is no
involved identifying students who went room. So the timing of your application
above and beyond within the context of can absolutely be a choice you make that
impact on the community. impacts that admissions decision.
04. What activities should I
be doing to get into a top
university?
What activities you explore to show
intellectual vitality doesn't always have to
match up to the major. You're showing that
you have it in your DNA to be one of those
students that takes ownership of a project
and runs with it.

And that's really what we’re looking for as 06. How has the level of
admissions officers as we break down the competition amongst
applications — we want to know if this applicants changed over
student has it in their DNA to go for it.
your career?
I think now, it's a really smart, savvy, well-
05. Is it ok to apply resourced global teenage population. I feel
undecided? that the numeric piece of the puzzle has
gotten stronger. I have noticed an
You can certainly apply undecided. Just
intellectual maturity that I think is sort of
keep in mind that you have to be aware of
beyond their years. I've been in this industry
the type of college you are applying to. For
as either a teacher or counselor or an
example, let’s say you're applying to
admissions officer for 25 years, and I am
Georgia Tech, you can be undecided, but is
definitely seeing things going on today that
that indecision about your entering the
intellectually are pretty special, and in that
school of engineering or school of business
way, I've seen a lot of movement and
for example?
change in the process.
I think one mistake students can make is
they really don't take time to understand 07. What’s the best essay
the structure of universities they are you have read?
applying to. You should take the time to
understand every college’s structure, and One of my favorite ones was a student
then view each one of those schools as that wrote about her habit. Her habit was
she always dressed nicely for school,
having their own separate door, and you
much nicer than anyone really needed to.
need to understand which door is easier or But she had this brilliant point that was:
harder for you to open.
"Right now in my life, I don't have a lot of
control. My dad cooks my dinner, I don't
get to cook what I'm going to eat, and
my school tells me what classes I'm
taking. But in that tiny sliver of my life
that I have control over, where I can
make a choice, I choose to exceed
people's expectations. And for now, it's
just how I dress but wait till I get to your
school. Wait till I become a doctor. Wait
till I exceed those expectations.”

It was the best essay. I just thought that

she had taken that habit and then used it
to say, "here's what it really tells you about
me,” and that was really powerful.
08. What if I don’t get
accepted into my dream
university?
I always tell students to never take a denial
from a university personally. It's really quite
frankly often a matter of fit. If we made the
comparison to an amusement park, it's like
looking at the sort of rides that my
university offered and saying, "gosh, I just
don't think that our rides really fit with
what this student is about."

09. How will COVID-19 affect

admissions?
As some students will have the SAT or ACT
and others won’t, as an admissions officer,
I’m going to really look closely at those
teacher recommendation letters now. I
think they're going to provide me with
much-needed context. So to students out
there who have experienced their classes
moving online, my recommendation is to
be that engaged student. Ask those
questions so that when the teachers write
recommendation letters they include
comments like: "Even in this difficult time,
this student was completely engaged in
the learning process."

I would also like to add that many times,

private universities ask the “Why”
supplemental question —  “Why are you
applying to my university?” I really think
this question has taken on added
importance in the evaluation process.

For extracurricular activities, the advice I

give here is to first think small. Colleges are
going to recognize that it's not quite so
easy to do some of the things students
used to be able to do. They're not expecting
you to cure the disease or to save the world,
but they want to see what you can achieve
in a world that has had to think small...think
community. So by community, it could be
your class community, it could be your
street, it could be your church's
community. And then finally basically think
impact, what can I be doing to help?
10. Will COVID-19 affect the
amount of financial aid that
is offered?
I think to really understand how much
COVID-19 will affect financial aid, we need
to consider what’s happening in the US. I've
been reading lots of articles about
universities that are already experiencing
financial crunches, there are hiring freezes
that have happened at universities that I
assumed had pretty deep pockets. So in
that way, I think that the ability to pay
might play a larger role in an admissions
decision than it has in the last two decades
or so, just the ability for the students to say
or the families to say, "we can pay the
tuition," is going to be something that'll be
a choice the colleges make.

11. If a school says they’re

“test-optional”, will I be at an
advantage if I do sit the SAT
or ACT?
The advantage of taking the SAT or ACT is
that it speaks to an admissions officer in
that we can say: “I know what this student
has….this is data that I can sink my teeth
into”. So I would continue to sign up for
exams. As they get canceled, just move
onto the next one. Try and get in a test
because I do think that submitting a score
will be an advantage.

12. Should I acknowledge

COVID-19 in my application?
I would say an admissions offer might
consider how a student addresses it. For
example, I would be talking about this
through my activities list. To an
admissions officer, if the student mentions
it, but then there is no evidence that they
tried to work with or help their
community, then that might pose a few
questions. Again, you need to go back to
what I said before about thinking small.
Show you're doing what you can do within
the context. Have something there that
shows that you are cognizant of other
people in this process and you were doing
your best to try and be helpful.
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