Education: Choosing the Class of '83

How Ivy League Brown does it, from A (admit) to Z (reject)

A few minutes after midnight on April 14, some 2,500 thick letters and 9,000 thin ones will leave the Providence post office. The thick letters offer admission to Brown, a highly selective Ivy League university. The thin letters say no or relegate applicants to the limbo of the waiting list. Those who go through thick and thin are participating in a process that mixes careful weighing, educated guesswork and plain horse trading. TIME's Evan Thomas sat in on the admissions committee. His...

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