At the beginning of the calendar year, schools form their review committees to begin the evaluation process of their current application pool for the upcoming school year. It's an essential part of the admissions process, but with so many students to review, you may need some help.

With enrollment on the rise, fifty-eight percent of private schools in one CATO survey reported an increase in applications between the 2021–22 and 2022–23 school years, with almost half of the schools reporting they had more applicants than spaces. 

An increase in applications is a “good” problem to have, but the lengthy review process requires a huge time commitment for everyone involved, — arduous tasks with a very real impact on the lives of many families.
No matter the process, the application review committee has to weigh many factors beyond the quality of the candidate including,

• Class balance
• Financial aid
• Scholarships
• Legacy
• Mission-fit

With so much to consider, using an online review tool as part of your school's enrollment management software can alleviate some of that burden and when it comes to reviewing a mountain of applications — it's a lifesaver.

Here’s how you can simplify the admissions evaluation process and what the benefits are for you and your team.

Reduce your committee's workload

With the extra time saved, you're making the application and review process easier without getting bogged down with the logistics. An online review module can streamline your admission process, and help your entire committee review applications anywhere, anytime — even from the comfort of their own homes. Schools can combine all the information collected during the student’s application process into a digital package for readers to score, make notes, and submit recommendations.

Additionally, an online reading and review process allows a school to eliminate the need to print everything out. No more folders, long meetings, or stacks of Post-it notes. Whoever has to sort, print, and stuff the previous folders will thank you for making a change.

Let’s break down what it would look like for your review committee if you moved to an online reading and review module within your school admissions and enrollment management system. 

The online application review process

There are two primary phases of the review process: reading and committee decisions. Some schools continuously read and score applications, while others have a specific time frame when the reviews take place. As an admission professional, one of your jobs may be to dictate what information to include in the review packet, such as what forms or documents to include, or important notes that have been collected along the way.

An online review process makes it easy for you to choose what information to include in your review packet. Everything that used to go into clunky paper folders can now be stored and managed online in your school admission software.

And as the admin, you can manage your readers, oversee which candidates have been reviewed, and kindly remind readers to finish reviewing their candidates.

Whether you have new readers each year, or an experienced professional managing the reading process, each participant will receive a list of assigned candidates to review with simple instructions. An online tool can create a list of all the prospective students who completed the application process. Reviewers can choose which candidates to begin with and start the reading process, making notes and comments about each applicant. Once all the required documents are reviewed, they can easily score for each assigned student.

Simple application scoring

No more waiting for the first reader to finish scoring a student before you start — everyone involved in the scoring process can read and score candidates at any time.

Another perk about making the switch to online application review is the option to define the rating criteria and scale used to grade each candidate. All you have to do is choose the type of rating scale you want to use with numerical or text values.

In order to score, the reader will review all the provided documents and rate the candidate at the end. From there, they can continue to the next candidate or go back to their original list.

Make decisions faster

Review committees meet frequently during the admission season. They are in charge of analyzing applicants and making recommendations or decisions on which students are accepted.

Each school varies on how often they meet to discuss students. When team members do meet, they look at everything from academic and extra-curricular interests to a student’s character, or past test scores. Overall, this can be a very difficult and time-consuming process for both your team and your families.

With an online reading and review tool, you can make decisions faster and more efficiently. Why not make both your team and your families happy?

Make committee meetings more efficient by using a candidate summary view with options to filter, sort, and compare review data side-by-side as you build your incoming class. You can even collect every reader’s notes in one centralized spot to review students and determine who's included in each grade.

Your online application review tool should have:

• Easy sync with your admissions and enrollment module
• Ability to change your reading and review criteria for each year
• Capability to set parameters for new users
• Application status
• Print options for those who want to conduct their reading on paper
• Accommodations and customization for schools with various levels of scoring 
• No charge for additional accounts for limited users/online readers

One huge benefit of using an online review tool is the ability to see candidates’ scores listed in one central place. You no longer need to organize manila folders or print hundreds of pages only for them to be lost somewhere along the evaluation process (or risk your morning coffee spilling onto a stack of applications.) Instead, all the information you need is available online.

After everyone has sorted through the applications, the notes and input from readers are collected into a summary list. This list will help facilitate committee meeting decision-making. The committee can easily view the average scores of each student and determine their incoming class through informed decisions.

Key takeaway

An online review tool will help you expedite the review and enrollment process while focusing on the important decisions for your school. Rather than getting hung up on completing the entire process with shared, easy-to-lose paper folders, streamline one of the most tedious tasks of your school's admissions process so you can turn your admissions team to what really matters — welcoming new families to campus.