The college admissions process often seems shrouded in mystery. Every year, prospective students anxiously speculate on what exactly it is that admissions officers value the most.
But at Georgetown, it’s not just admissions officers that decide who is admitted—a select few students weigh in as well.
Every year since 1970, rising seniors from each school at Georgetown have been invited to apply to participate on the admissions committee—four students from the College, two from the MSB, two from the SFS, and one from Nursing and Health. The students are selected by each school’s Office of the Dean, with input from the student academic councils. The nine selected students are then assigned to four- to five-person subcommittees with admissions officers and faculty members, where they read and discuss applications. These unpaid undergraduate volunteers have an inside look at the otherwise tight-lipped admissions process.
“Admissions isn’t as insulated from student opinion as I previously thought,” Kumail Zaidi (SFS ’24), one of two SFS students on the 2023-2024 admissions committee, said.
Students not only sit on the subcommittees, but play an active role in the admissions process, according to Zaidi. The students score and vote on each candidate alongside the admissions officers and faculty.
“The student role matches the impact that everyone else has in the process,” he said. “Everyone has an equal voice in it.”
If it sounds surprising that undergraduate students participate in the admissions process, it’s because it is. According to Heather Kim, Georgetown’s senior assistant director of admissions, the practice of including students in the admissions process is unusual, if not unique to Georgetown.
“Anecdotally, we don’t know of any other schools that have admissions committees with students on them,” she said.
Representatives from peer institutions including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology confirmed to the Voice that student opinion is not considered in their admissions processes.
Georgetown’s unusual practice began in response to student unrest during the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement, according to a university official. Students wanted a larger voice in university policies, so Georgetown agreed to give students positions on the admissions committee, the official said. After a successful trial year, the practice was made permanent.
Zaidi joined the admissions committee in part to advocate for placing greater value on arts-based accomplishments in the admissions process. He felt that admissions tended to value creative accomplishments less than other types.
Zaidi also said that his time on the admissions committee led him to change his perspective on certain aspects of the admissions process.
“I think that sometimes a lot of colleges will throw around the phrase, ‘We evaluate the candidate as a whole,’” Zaidi said. But at Georgetown, he was pleasantly surprised that this statement rang true.
“Your grades and whatnot matter, but more broadly, the person that comes across on your application, the holistic person, the sort of aggregate of all the activities and things that you’ve done, matters, in some cases, significantly more,” he said.
Samuel Aronson, associate dean of the SFS, who served on a subcommittee with Zaidi, wrote in an email to the Voice that having undergraduate students on the university admissions committee is both “a great joy” and vital to the admissions process.
“It brings a fresh perspective to the decision-making process. These students are directly experiencing the university environment and can provide insights into what qualities and experiences make a successful student at that institution,” Aronson said. Having students from diverse backgrounds help with admissions decisions also promotes inclusivity, he wrote.
He added that the practice positively affects the current student body.
“When students have a voice in the admissions process, they feel more invested in the university’s culture and values,” he said. “We espouse a strong commitment to cura personalis and having current students shape our future student body helps ensure the perpetuation of those values.”
Adrian Ali-Caccamo (SFS ’24), former president of the SFS Academic Council, which helps select the students on admissions, expanded on the unique value that students bring to the process.
“Students have insight that the adult admissions officers and faculty members just don’t have by nature of their position at this point in their lives in the world,” said Ali-Caccamo. “We’re closer in age to the applicants, understand what life on campus is like, understand in our peers what makes a successful student, and what makes it hard for students to succeed at Georgetown.”
For Zaidi, the biggest challenge while working on the committee was balancing his personal beliefs with the overall process. While he personally valued standardized testing less than other measures when evaluating applicants, others in his subcommittee valued it more.
“Everyone has different evaluative mechanisms, and admissions is not a clear-cut case most of the time—otherwise a robot could do it. It’s a human process that requires human inputs,” Zaidi said. “You have to figure out how to balance your own beliefs about any individual parts of the admissions process with the totality of it.”
The experience was fulfilling for Zaidi, especially in his final year at Georgetown.
“The application reading process itself is rewarding because it forces you to think in interesting ways about Georgetown, campus culture, campus life, and what sorts of things are valuable to you and not,” he said. “That reflection was an interesting thing for me to do as a senior.”
Zaidi recommends the experience for any students interested in making an impact in admissions. Rising seniors can look out for an application email from their Office of the Dean in the spring.
“I can attest to the fact that as a student, you can have a significant impact, and that impact is heard and valued,” he said.
