I am led to a small round table behind a partition and offered a seat. An orange folder sits in front of me. Some 35 days ago I requested my admissions file, just to see what it would look like. Now that it’s at my fingertips, my curiosity is stronger than ever. I’ve wondered if I might find comments from Eastern Washington University’s admissions officers scrawled on my application about my low-income status, my learning disability, or my GPA. I’ve envisioned notes, points systems, highlighted portions of my essays and transcripts.

The reality is much less exciting.

What is inside the orange folder: cryptic abbreviations that, when translated by Penny Vadnais, program support supervisor for records and registration at Eastern, turn out to be no more than notes confirming of my change of name because I got married less than a year before applying, verifying receipt of my FAFSA, and validating that admission had been granted. There are immunization records to prove that I’m not a walking plague, transcripts establishing that I graduated high school, and transcripts from the two community colleges I attended. My answers to short essay questions are there too. There are also emails that were exchanged between my TRiO adviser and me, emails about me sent between the TRiO program and admissions, emails that reveal nothing new whatsoever. (TRiO is a government program for students who are low income, have learning disabilities, are first generation students, etc.) There are no notes scribbled or typed in the margins, no highlighted anything. The big mysterious black hole into which my admissions file disappeared as soon as I submitted it? Not that thrilling.

After submitting an application for admission to an institution, most students never see it again. It may come as a surprise to many college students that they have the legal right to examine their application after it passes through the admissions process, whether they were denied or accepted. Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), students have the ability to request all files a college holds on them, including admissions records. By law, an institution must provide such records within 45 calendar days of receiving the request.

Even if a student were to make a request and view their file, it wouldn’t necessarily reveal much about how their application was considered. Does a good GPA balance out terrible test scores? Can a great essay save an otherwise unimpressive application? Do they even read the essays?

While the process varies from school to school, the process at Eastern is fairly simple.

“The most important factor in our admissions decisions is typically the GPA and the test scores,” EWU admissions adviser Stan Pichinevskiy said. “I’ll look at that first. If it’s a 3.3 average then most likely the student has all the core requirements met.”

A student with a GPA of 3.3 will automatically receive admission. Pichinevskiy said the admissions officers use a calculator called the Admissions Index, a weighted measure that uses the cumulative GPA, SAT and ACT test scores as part of the review process. While a student may have a high GPA and test scores, and therefore a high Admissions Index score, if missing credits or other issues pop up, their file will receive a more thorough review. The Admissions Index is not necessarily the deciding factor in whether Eastern will grant admission to a student, but plays a role in the admissions office’s decision.

“A student that may have a 2.8 but a really high test score, that could boost their score into an automatic admit zone,” Pichinevskiy said. “I know students a lot of times freak out about their test scores, and we have students that take their test six times, and we’re like ‘You’re killing yourself, don’t worry about it too much.’ Of course, test scores are important for other things, like our scholarships and the honors program, they look at that stuff pretty seriously.”

If a student’s Admissions Index score is below a certain level, meaning their GPA and test scores aren’t quite high enough, that’s where essays come into play. Essays give the student a chance to explain what obstacles they may have faced that resulted in low grades and test scores. Pichinevskiy says that three people within the admissions office read essays, and score them according to a rubric.

Students who apply to Eastern with a GPA of less than 2.0 are automatically denied, but this doesn’t mean it’s the end of the road for them. Students can appeal the admissions office’s decision if they believe they were wrongly denied. Students who are still denied after appeal, or who have been accepted but find problems with the system like post-baccalaureate student Alexis Beaman, may find answers through a FERPA request of their admissions file.

“The admissions process was super confusing since there’s no post bacc app, I had to apply as a transfer and mark that I’m post bacc,” Beaman said. A post-baccalaureate student is one who has already obtained a bachelor’s degree and is pursuing a second bachelor’s degree. “This completely messed up my financial aid since they saw me as a transfer and offered me grants and work study that later they determined I wasn’t qualified for since I’m post bacc. So I decided to come here thinking I had about $6,500 in aid that they later said I couldn’t get. It really screwed my finances up. And no one admitted fault. No one said they were sorry.”

While Beaman was able to find a way to remain at Eastern, she says she intends to request her file to figure out where things went wrong.

“I hope it would provide insight but honestly with all the other problems I’ve had with EWU and paperwork I don’t have high hopes,” Beaman said.

Pichinevskiy says admissions officers may make notes on an application through a system called Banner, but such notes are typically generic.

If a student calls, however, notes on the conversation may be made, which could potentially impact the student’s chances of receiving admission.

“Any time a student calls us and talks about an application we make note of that and we talk about how the student shares personal things on their life,” he said. “Then we, based on that conversation, can make a recommendation for an admissions decision. It helps.”

In a pool of over 8,000 applications, a simple phone call sets a student apart and gives their application more personality.

“Students that make an extra effort and contact us directly, that’s a good sign,” Pichinevskiy said. “That shows perseverance and interest.”

If all that perseverance and interest isn’t enough, or an admitted student wants to see if those phone calls really made a difference, a FERPA request is as easy as sending a brief email to the admissions office. But be prepared for some bewilderment on the part of the admissions and records and registration staff.

“I wondered if you were doing a story or something,” Vadnais told me after I explained my interest in seeing my file.

It seems FERPA requests are rather infrequent around here. Whether this is because students don’t know the rights afforded by FERPA, or most students simply don’t care, or both, I can’t say for sure. But for any who wish to see what the university knows about them, the process of requesting and viewing a file is as mundane as doing laundry.