How Admissions Officers Read Your Application: What the Harvard Court Record, Yale and MIT Show
By Rona Aydin
How long does an admissions officer spend on each application?
No college we checked publishes a reading time. In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the district court wrote that Harvard admissions officers “each described a time-consuming, whole-person review process” and reported “approximately 35,000 applications for admission to the class of 2019” and “the forty admissions officers who read applicant files” (SFFA v. Harvard, D. Mass. 2019). If every file had one first reader and the files were shared evenly, each officer would have read about 875, by our calculation; the court gave no per-reader count, and second and third reads add to the total.
The only rate in the opinions is for the University of North Carolina, whose case the Supreme Court decided together with Harvard’s. The Court wrote that every UNC application “is initially reviewed by one of approximately 40 admissions office readers,” “each of whom reviews roughly five applications per hour” (SFFA v. Harvard, Supreme Court 2023). That is about 12 minutes per first read, by our calculation, at one public university, and it says nothing about Harvard or other colleges. Yale, MIT and Penn describe who reads but not for how long.
Who reads an application first?
- Harvard (court record). “Applications are divided into geographic dockets based on high school location” and are “initially reviewed by an admissions officer or ‘first reader'” (district court). The First Circuit adds that “Each high school has a dedicated “first reader” for applications from that high school” (First Circuit, 2020).
- Yale. Step 1 is an “Initial Review” by “A Senior Admissions Officer,” who reviews “transcript (including GPA and academic rigor),” “testing, activities, honors, and awards,” and reads essays and recommendations “When further evaluation is necessary” (Yale step by step).
- MIT. A complete application “will first be read by a senior admissions officer” (MIT selection process).
- Penn. Its officers say they read applications “(and we read all of them)” (Meet Penn Admissions).
What ratings do readers assign?
At Harvard, “There are six types of ratings assigned during the reading stage”: “academic ratings, extracurricular ratings, athletic ratings, school support ratings, personal ratings, and overall ratings” (First Circuit). Readers “fine tune their ratings with “+” and “-” marks,” and “Ratings of “1” are exceedingly rare.” An academic “1” signifies “summa cum laude” potential, and the overall rating “takes all available information into account and is not a formulaic weighting of the other ratings.” The courts describe the scale differently: the district court says ratings “generally range from 1 to 4, with 1 being the strongest rating,” while the Supreme Court says “A rating of “1” is the best; a rating of “6” the worst” (SFFA v. Harvard, Supreme Court 2023).
Yale’s area officer “writes a summary of application’s contents and gives an overall rating,” and a second reader “provides an independent summary of the application’s strengths” “and potential weaknesses and gives a second overall rating” (Yale step by step). Yale adds that numbers “are always interpreted by a real person and are never fed into a formula or an algorithm,” and that “Admissions officers do not, for example, unweight or reweight grade point averages” (What Yale Looks For).
What happens in committee?
| College | Committee stage, as the college or court describes it |
|---|---|
| Harvard (court record) | Regional subcommittees meet “over three to five days”; a full committee “comprised of forty members” meets, and “every member of the committee must vote on admission”; a final “lop process” trims the tentative admit list |
| Yale | “Five-member committee”; “Applicants receiving at least four “admit” votes are admitted to the class” |
| MIT | “At least a dozen people will significantly discuss and debate an application before it is placed in the admit pile” |
The courts also differ on what the Harvard lop list contains. The Supreme Court says it holds “only four pieces of information: legacy status, recruited athlete status, financial aid eligibility, and race” (Supreme Court opinion), while the First Circuit lists “race, athletic rating, legacy status, and socioeconomic status.”
Do admissions officers read applications by region?
Some do. Harvard’s dockets are geographic, and Yale’s second step is an “area admissions officer with regional experience evaluating applications” “from a specific city, state, region, or country” (Yale step by step). Princeton lists “the territories they manage” for each officer, though its page does not say officers read their territory’s files (Princeton admission team). MIT says the opposite: “we do not read your application along with other students from your school or region” (MIT selection process).
What are ALDC applicants?
In the Harvard case, ALDC meant “Athletes, Legacies, on the Dean’s or Director’s interest list, or Children of faculty and staff” (district court). The court called them “the four most notable groups of applicants, other than racial minorities, who receive such tips.” It found that fewer than 3% of all applicants, but more than 20% of ALDC applicants, received a staff interview, and that “Approximately 52% of all applicants and 79% of ALDC applicants who receive staff interviews are admitted.” These findings describe Harvard’s process for the classes in the case, and the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision changed how race may be used.
What does this mean for applicants?
The view of Oriel Admissions is that the record supports a few practical conclusions without a reading-time figure. Harvard readers, in the court record, rated several parts of a file separately, so each part should carry its own evidence; Harvard and Yale both assign readers by region at some stage, so a school profile and a counselor letter that explain context matter; and the Yale committee hears summaries before it reviews parts of the file, so a file that can be summarized in a few clear sentences is easier to advocate for. In our view, the honest answer to “how long” is that the colleges we checked have not said, and the one court figure describes a single public university.
Frequently Asked Questions About How Admissions Officers Read Applications
No college we checked publishes a reading time. The Supreme Court reported that UNC readers review roughly five applications per hour, about 12 minutes each by our calculation; no opinion gives a figure for Harvard.
At Yale and MIT, a senior admissions officer reads first. In the Harvard case record, a first reader assigned by the high school or region of the applicant read first.
Yale describes an initial review, an area officer review, a second reader review and a five-member committee. Only stronger applications move on at each step, and an admit needs at least four votes.
The First Circuit lists six: academic, extracurricular, athletic, school support, personal and overall. The courts describe the scale differently, but a rating of 1 is the strongest.
Harvard, in the court record, and Yale assign readers by geography. MIT says it does not read applications alongside others from the same school or region.
In the Harvard case it meant recruited athletes, legacies, applicants on the Dean or Director interest list, and children of faculty and staff.
Yale says its admissions officers do not unweight or reweight grade point averages, and that numbers are always interpreted by a person rather than a formula.
Oriel Admissions suggests making each part of the file carry its own evidence and making sure the school profile and counselor letter explain your context.
Sources: SFFA v. Harvard, Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, D. Mass., September 30, 2019, SFFA v. Harvard, First Circuit opinion, November 12, 2020, SFFA v. Harvard, Supreme Court opinion, June 29, 2023, Yale Selection Process: Step by Step, What Yale Looks For, MIT Admissions, selection process, Princeton, Meet the Admission Team, Meet Penn Admissions. All read October 27, 2026.
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