Word: docket
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...small town in Oregon, it will become wary of admitting more. Perhaps, as Whitla suggests, the advocate himself will not be able to find it in him to argue a tenth case enthusiastically. More important, there is something of a quota built into the admissions process. This is the docket system. Applicants are divided into 22 dockets, according to the secondary school the student attended. Far from Harvard, the docket divisions are large geographical units: Docket B, for example, is The Rockies, and G is Ohio and Kentucky. But further East, Docket K is Cambridge, Docket I is entitled Andover...
After all the numerical parameters are available, a computer examines the evidence and announces an approximate quota for each docket, based on how many were admitted from this docket last year and how the numerical evaluations of this year's students in the docket compare with this year's applicants overall. Thus, if California's applicants suddenly become twice as good as last year (by the numbers) relative to the whole group, the computer will allot more places to California--but not twice as many...
Though these quotas are not adhered to strictly, "if you go over the quota in one docket, it's painful when you have to undercut another," Peterson says...
Humhprey Doermann, a member of the admissions committee and former admissions director, explains that the docket system avoids the possibility of admitting so many, say, from the West Coast--which the committee considers first--that there will be no room left in the class when the committee gets further east, in which case the members might get progressively stricter. This could, of course, also be avoided by not classifying the students geographically at all. But that, officials say, would be administractively inconvenient. The advocate system depends on having applicants grouped by area so the advocate can visit their schools...
Peterson calls the docket system "a kind of quota based on the excellence of the boys involved." While it no doubt favors such places as Exeter and Andover, Peterson believes that "Harvard should maintain a Yankee flavor, and besides, schools like these were themselves selective in choosing their students." Dana M. Cotton, the senior member of the admissions committee with 23 years under his belt, points out that Exeter and Andover are not supplying as many Harvard students as they used to, "which the headmasters there understand but which is difficult to explain to a parent who sent...