Ok so here's my take on this shiznits, coming from a different background than I think most here may have. My childhood nanny's mom and dad (yeah yeah make jokes about having a nanny har har har, $100 says I've heard them all) were career admissions administrators. Knew the family well. One at a med school, the other b-school, both in New York, since retired, though. Even back when numeric grades mattered a great deal more than the "holistic approach" that has taken front and center in recent years, they were just constantly talking about "fit" and "profile" and **** like that in the early 2000s when I started to understand wtf was up at dinner table conversations. (Oh, and if the adcoms on these forums are any indication, these people
reallllly like talking about their jobs; like, I'm in DC right now where people love to talk about themselves, which is great for young people like us to learn their experiences, but damn, this does not match what I've seen in those social circles.)
Depending on the personality and vision of the Dean of the school, schools can range from caring a lot to caring a whole f*cking lot about untangibles and how they "feel" about people (omg how I lurch when they say things like "So I feel like this and this applicant will come here and engage in [blank] more than that applicant will take advantage of our so and so resources"). My experience with admissions officers from college through outreach initiatives tell me that it's the same thing magnified by magnitudes behind closed doors these days. Once your numbers are in range, it's all about the subjective things.
So when
@gettheleadout says that Mich put him on hold, Pritzker has no response, and we all know his numerics work out, it's the "fit" part we're talking about that probably didn't sing well with the reviewers. Maybe they don't think a southern state school applicant is best placed in the hollow Midwest with the snow and polar bears. Maybe they know he'll get into at least one of the top 20 and so if he's not at the top of their "want" list (perhaps further down on the list), they'll push him down the priority list.
Point is, they're not f*cking around when they make you write the "why this school" essays. The bad part is that this'll lead to plenty of holds and rejections. The good part is that schools are different, and so it's a new action sequence with every school. Have a beer, a Yuengling. Go to a happy hour.
