College Admissions Expert Elizabeth Levine: Demonstrated Interest

“Demonstrated Interest” is a term used by college's that describes how much a student is interested in attending their college. It encompasses every touch point that a student has with a specific college. By touch points I mean visiting a school, Emailing a college admissions officer, sending a thank you note after an interview, completing an information request form on a college's web site, Facebook “Likes”, Tweets about the college and more. These touch points can improve a students chances of gaining acceptance to certain colleges and is used not only during the application process but prior to as well as if a student is wait-listed.
There are specific software packages that a college has that tracks these touch points. They use this software not only to gauge how much a student is interested in their school but also to gain insight on how to better market their institution to students and parents given the competitive landscape in today's search for the right college.
Each college considers “Demonstrated Interest” at varying levels from very important, in line with consideration of academic GPA, to not considered whatsoever. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, 50.2% of colleges consider Demonstrated Interest of moderate importance to considerable importance, which is an increase since 2003.
You can find out how much a college takes into consideration “Demonstrated Interest” by searching on the Internet “Common Data Set” and the college name you are interested in.
Bottom line is, don't ever underestimate how important a student showing their interest in a college is and how every interaction you have with that school is tracked. It just may mean the difference between being accepted by the school of your choice, or not.