Word: docketed
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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...
Humphrey 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 administratively inconvenient. The advocate system depends on having applicants grouped by area so the advocates 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...
Admissions officials begin to squirm when the word "quota" turns up in conversation. "The only quota is the quota of common sense," says Cotton. Doermann doesn't think the docket system imposes any quota at all, "but I can see why someone wouldn't believe...