Who Reads Your College Application (And What They Look For)
When you hit "submit" on your college application, real people ultimately read it. Some schools use AI to help with administrative tasks like organizing files or checking data, but the actual review—the reading, the interpretation, and the recommendation—is still done by humans. Understanding who they are, how they read, and what they're looking for can help you write an application that actually connects with them.
Who Reads Your College Application?
The person reviewing your application depends on the school, but they usually fall into one of these categories:
Dedicated admissions officers. At most colleges, your application will be read by a full-time admissions officer whose job is to evaluate applicants and make recommendations. At larger universities, they're often assigned by region and know your high school well.
Faculty readers. At some liberal arts colleges and for specific programs (music, art, engineering, honors programs), professors may read applications directly.
Trained application readers. At large universities with high application volumes, admissions offices hire seasonal readers, often graduate students or education professionals, to help with the first read of each application.
Student readers. A few schools intentionally include current undergraduate students in the review process to bring the student perspective into decisions.
Committee review. At most selective schools, your application is read by at least two people, and applications that reach the final stage are discussed by a committee.
What this means for you: you're writing for real humans, not an algorithm. Those humans are reading dozens of applications a day, sometimes in 15 to 20 minute chunks. The best applications make their job easier. They're clear, specific, memorable, and easy for a reader to summarize and advocate for when the committee sits down together.
As Nick Fernald, founder of Revision Learning who has coached students and read thousands of essays over more than a decade, puts it: "The students who get in aren't the ones with the flashiest achievements. They're the ones whose applications tell a detailed, specific, and coherent story about who they are and what they'll bring to a campus."
How Do They Read Your Application?
When admissions officers read your application, they do so in the context of your overall file, a process called holistic admissions. With holistic admissions, colleges aim to evaluate the complete profile of a student, without giving disproportionate weight to any one aspect of their application.
Below, see how an admissions officer might consider the following parts of your application.
Academics
College is, first and foremost, a place for learning. Admissions officers want to make sure that students have the academic background to be successful, and so they typically start by looking at a student's transcript. As they're reviewing, they consider the following:
Achievement: How successful has this student been in the classroom?
Challenge: Has the student challenged themselves in the context of their high school? If there were AP and honors classes offered, did they take them?
Breadth: Was the student pushing themselves across the entire academic curriculum? Generally, colleges like to see that students are taking classes in the "big 5" of math, science, social science, English, and foreign language.
Trends: Did the student improve each year in the classroom or did their grades decline?
This review process is done in the context of your high school. Every high school has something called a "school profile," which your guidance counselor will submit to colleges with your application. The school profile gives the admissions officer information about your high school curriculum and the types of opportunities offered at your high school. This helps the admissions officer understand whether you have made the most of those opportunities.
Test scores are also considered under the broad umbrella of "academics." While many schools have adopted test-optional policies, they will still look at test scores should you choose to include them.
Takeaway for students: There is no time like the present to focus on schoolwork. Eleventh and twelfth grade are particularly important as they give students the opportunity to show a positive "upward trend" in their grades. If there was anything outside of your control that impacted your grades (such as an illness or a difficult family situation), you can explain that in the Additional Information section of the Common App.
Essays
For admissions officers, the essays provide an authentic glimpse into who the applicant is. It's one of the few opportunities where the admissions officer gets to hear directly from the student. The best essays are based on the student's unique life experience and point of view (learn more about what a personal statement is). Essays don't have to be about fancy programs or impressive opportunities. Often, students write great essays about important everyday things. Strong essays reveal the student's authentic voice and unique world perspective through storytelling.
In our workshops, we've seen students write powerful essays about things that felt small at first, like the way a grandmother stirred sauce, a moment of panic in a driver's ed test, or a five-minute conversation on a bus. What makes these essays land isn't the topic itself. It's the specific moments the student captures and the voice they use to tell them. This is at the heart of the Moments Method®, our storytelling framework: authentic stories come from paying attention to what's already in your life, not from manufacturing something impressive.
Students often assume admissions officers want polished, sophisticated writing. In reality, they want to hear a specific person. A reader who has just finished 40 essays about "overcoming adversity" will pause for one that opens with a Tuesday morning and the sound of a milk carton being opened. If you're not sure how to start yours, check out our post on how to start a college essay with real examples that worked.
Takeaway for students: Essays are an important part of your college application. Make sure that you start your essays early and give yourself plenty of time to revise and proofread. Want to know if your essay is strong before you submit? Use our college essay rubric to self-assess, and check out what admissions officers look for in a college essay to understand what makes essays stand out.
Extracurriculars
In addition to academics, colleges are also interested in seeing how students have contributed to their communities. As the college admissions committee is reading your application, they're trying to imagine you on their campus and how you will get involved outside of the classroom. Keep in mind that there is no magic formula to this; you don't necessarily need an extensive list filled with 10+ extracurriculars. Rather, colleges want to see how active you've been and how you've made a difference in your high school or local community, which gives them a sense of how you can be counted on to make a difference on their campus.
Takeaway for students: Whether you are working a part-time job, taking care of your siblings, volunteering, playing sports, making art, or involved in something else, how you spend your time outside the classroom is important.
Recommendations
Letters of recommendation, which are typically written by teachers and college counselors, help admissions officers learn about what you are like in the classroom. Recommendations can carry a lot of weight, so it's important to choose your recommenders wisely. Typically, students opt to get recommendations from teachers they've had most recently, in either eleventh or twelfth grade.
Takeaway for students: Think about the teachers who know you really well, not necessarily the ones who gave you the best grades. The best recommendations will tell the admissions officer a story about what students are like in the classroom.
Context
After looking at the other parts of a student's application, an admissions reader will typically go back to the beginning of the application to get a deeper understanding of the student's personal, family, and school context. This is why all applications will ask you about the different places you have lived, where your parents work, the educational backgrounds of your parents and siblings, the languages spoken in your home, and what race or ethnicity you identify as.
For instance, will you be the first in your family to go to college, or do both of your parents have advanced degrees? Is English the primary language spoken in your home or is it something else?
Takeaway for students: Context helps admissions officers make sense of you as both a person and a student. Additionally, college admissions officers work to build a class of students, so they are interested in all the ways you will contribute to the community. They are looking for students with different academic and extracurricular interests as well as different life experiences, so make sure to show them who you are.
What Happens After the Review?
After reading your application, the admissions officer writes up a summary of your file and gives their own recommendation on the admissions decision, usually admit, deny, or waitlist. (This is the reader's recommendation to the committee, not to be confused with the letters of recommendation your teachers write.) Depending on the college, a second reader may then evaluate your application, and at more selective schools, your file will be discussed in committee before a final decision is made.
Admissions decisions are typically released from December through March, depending on the school and the application round (early decision, early action, or regular decision).
Want to make sure your essays do the work they need to do in this process? Check out our college essay checklist for five questions to ask before you submit, and if you'd like structured support, explore our college essay coaching and workshops.
Stuck on your college essays? Come write them live!
Staring at a blank doc? Rewriting the same opening line? Wondering if your topic is "good enough”? Every student hits this wall, and it's much easier to get past with a supportive coach and a room full of peers going through the same thing.
Finding Your Moment: College Essay Workshop is a 2-hour live session where you'll brainstorm, draft, and get real-time feedback using the Moments Method®, the same framework Revision Learning has taught to 250,000+ students.
Wednesday, August 26 · 5–7pm ET · Virtual
Sunday, September 13 · 12–2 pm ET · Virtual
$49 · Limited to 20 students · One year of upgraded platform access included
Led by Nick Fernald, Ed.M., a longtime educator and founder of Revision Learning.