Randomness

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Nah, you are just being evaluated on criteria that you don't have a way of fulling understanding.
 
Does anyone else think this process is equivalent to throwing darts with your eyes closed?

The way I see it, it's like I chose to be thrown down to the bottom of a well. Willingly, of course, because I am a fool and the well looked more inviting from the outside. Now that I'm in, I see that it's dark, moldy, and there's just enough water so that I have to tread. After three months of being stuck down the well, screaming at the top of my lungs about how qualified I am to get out of this well to any of the passers-by that will listen, I begin to fear that all is lost. I will die in this well.

And then suddenly, a voice! Seraphic tones regale me from on high. A rope is tossed, and I clamber to the surface, eternally thankful for my rescuer. Oh, how beautiful they are! They pat me on the back and assure me everything will be alright. They give me a towel to dry myself, a warm sandwich and chips, and a free pen, folder, and name-tag. We talk for hours. My savior takes me on a tour of their house, which is beautiful and for some reason filled with sick people. Then, I notice something strange. On our trip, we've circled back down to the well. "What's this?" I ask. I do not want to be back here.

Then they kick me in the back. I fall down the well. From the top, I hear the voice call down, "I'll come back to get you in January. Maybe. Or March. Or you won't hear from us. Enjoy the free pen."
 
The way I see it, it's like I chose to be thrown down to the bottom of a well. Willingly, of course, because I am a fool and the well looked more inviting from the outside. Now that I'm in, I see that it's dark, moldy, and there's just enough water so that I have to tread. After three months of being stuck down the well, screaming at the top of my lungs about how qualified I am to get out of this well to any of the passers-by that will listen, I begin to fear that all is lost. I will die in this well.

And then suddenly, a voice! Seraphic tones regale me from on high. A rope is tossed, and I clamber to the surface, eternally thankful for my rescuer. Oh, how beautiful they are! They pat me on the back and assure me everything will be alright. They give me a towel to dry myself, a warm sandwich and chips, and a free pen, folder, and name-tag. We talk for hours. My savior takes me on a tour of their house, which is beautiful and for some reason filled with sick people. Then, I notice something strange. On our trip, we've circled back down to the well. "What's this?" I ask. I do not want to be back here.

Then they kick me in the back. I fall down the well. From the top, I hear the voice call down, "I'll come back to get you in January. Maybe. Or March. Or you won't hear from us. Enjoy the free pen."
I've been in the well so long that I developed biological computation devices, through which I communicate with you today.
 
Yeah most of my II's were from places I thought I had no fit for and made no sense as to how I even qualified. Whereas there are a ton of schools I thought I was a shoe in for, I even tailored my primary to be slightly relevant to the missions of my goal schools. Really makes no sense.
 
The process reminds me of Pearl's monologue about how the paths of falling petals seem random but are actually carefully controlled by thousands of different forces.
 
My "gossip" knowledge from the school is they really relied heavily on "personality" of applicants and who on the adcom simply liked which applicants. I am grossly overstating and simplifying here but they were so small, so many good applicants, that much of their review criteria after selecting candidates was who would best fit into the small class size. So their formal process was significantly less procedural than other schools, somewhat inefficient.
Nope. See:
Sorry to quote old posts, but I can 100% confirm this is exactly NOT what happened.

The old method used an algorithm to rule out students. The algorithm took into account EC's and stats. What it didn't take into account were things like "did the applicant have to work while in school, and thus had less time for both studies and EC's" or "did the applicant know how to effectively 'game the system' and assign hours to EC categories strategically". The new dean stepped in and was... let's go with "unenthusiastic" about this algorithm (kind of ruffled some Mayo feathers while they were at it). The new dean decides that there is no way to reconcile the old algorithm with his vision of a good Mayo candidate so he pulls the trigger on unrejecting applicants he thought to be competitive that got automatically screened out.

In summary, it went from a "not really stats-based" screen to a "really not really stats-based" screen.
 
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