Webinar Transcript: Live Q&A with Emory University Senior Associate Dean of Admission

(This is a transcript of a webinar from October 2025, a recording of which you can find on our YouTube channel.) 

Elton Lin: Alright, as people are filing in, I think most… everybody has been seeing Anthony on our webinars. And you're gonna look closely, and it's not Anthony; it is Anna joining us today. She's gonna be moderating. She'll jump back in… in the question and answer time, and we'll be excited to have Anna this time for the trip.

Anna Lu: Alright, sounds good.

Elton Lin: We'll see you back in a bit, Anna.

Let me reorganize the window a little bit, and let me… if you don't mind, go ahead and go onto the chat—I always ask this—but go onto the chat, and go ahead and post where you are calling in from. I'm always excited and encouraged when we have people from all over the United States—and very often, all over the world.

So, if you may, go ahead and post in the chat, just give us a quick chat post on where you're calling in from… could be the Bay Area, could be the East Coast. If you're on the East Coast, it's 9pm. Giles is, you know, on Atlanta time, so he might be ready to go to bed. But go ahead and, go ahead and post, if you don't mind, where you are calling in from.

Alright, Sunnyvale, Oklahoma City! Nice. There's only one thing to say. Oklahoma City, San Jose, New Jersey… Frisco, Texas is always well represented, Giles. Always well represented.

Giles Eady: Always.

Elton Lin: Always. Wow, Cincinnati, Ohio, fantastic. Menlo Park. Good to see everybody. Go ahead and keep posting where you are calling in from.

And then, as mentioned before, we have a Q&A box. We will spare as much time at the end to answer any and all questions, so go ahead and post questions at any time, right from the start, and then Anna will jump back in with us and come back and we'll pose those questions back to Giles.

So, I want to do a quick intro. Excited to always have Giles Eady from Emory University on with us. He's always been… I've just personally enjoyed getting to know him. He's not only been on our webinar for a few years; we've been able to grab a few meals and just hear a little bit about Giles' story. Giles, I mean, in his free time as an emergency medical technician, right?

Giles Eady: Yeah.

Elton Lin: And, so he's… I always say he's saving lives in more ways than one, right? So he's doing a lot of good work. And maybe he doesn't have that much time now with two kids… no. But I'm grateful that he's able to join us on the webinar again for this time and to answer any of our questions.

Giles, if you don't mind, before we kind of launch into questions, you know… give us an intro,  tell us about maybe how you got started, what brought you here, and what delights you in the work of admissions.

Giles Eady: Okay, so, again, hello, I'm Giles Eady. I'm a Senior Associate Dean of Admission at Emory University. I did not grow up saying that that's what I wanted to be. It is not something I sought after; it came after me.

So the way I got into it, I graduated from college in 2007, and had a corporate job, immediately after graduating college, went to… worked that job, and then 2008 happened, which was a little downturn in the economy, and the company that I was working for abruptly closed.

And so, when it closed, I was unemployed and I needed a job, and so… I worked as a tour guide at my alma mater, And so I went back to my alma mater and said, okay, I was a tour guide, I think I can be an admission counselor. And so I petitioned, got the job as an admission counselor. The plan was to only do it for a year or two until I started grad school, but 18 years later and a graduate degree, I am still here.

And what delights me in doing college admission is just seeing how lives are changed by higher education. I see so many students every year, coming in… their minds are in one place, and they have all these grandiose plans of being this specific thing, but then they get a college education and the grandiose plans change to something else more… that's more fitting and grandiose as well. And so, to me, just seeing that transformation in college is really delightful. It keeps me coming back every year to do it, so…

Elton Lin: I mean, just as a follow-up question… you read a lot of apps, you see some students on the front end, but do you actually see the progression of some of these students as they go through college? I mean, do they come back and they say, “hey, Giles, what's up?” I mean, how [many] connection touchpoints do you have with these students?

Giles Eady: Actually, surprisingly, a lot.

Just with the community at Emory, we tend to know the people that come. So, they might be working in my office, they might be the students that say, “I was so inspired by what admissions did for me that I want to give back, and I want to be a tour guide for the admission office,” so they work as tour guides.

I also… I teach a little bit at Emory as well, and so I teach one of the first-year orientation classes, and so I get to see the students that I made decisions on in the class, and then once you make that connection with them, you can't shake them off.

My class is only one semester, but I tend to have office hours year-round. So as students reach out: “Giles, can I connect with you to run something by you?” I have those conversations all the time, from “hey, this adjustment to college has kind of been strange for me, how do I adapt?” or “you know, I took this class, and it really piqued my interest, and I'm really thinking about altering my major course of study. Is this feasible?”

And I've even had the conversations—one of my favorite conversations is with the pre-med students who come to Emory with [the] intention of being pre-med, and they are biology, pre-med all the way. But then they find something along the way at Emory, and—for instance, I had a student, one of my beloved students… she is from Honolulu, and came to Emory and changed her major to dance. Wonderful dancer, graduated from Emory with a dance degree, still on pre-med track, went back home to Hawaii and went to medical school there, is now a physician. And so I love having those conversations with students, to really help narrow down their path and really find their passions. And so, I think she's doing orthopedic surgery, which is totally fitting as a dancer. So, she's great.

So I love having those conversations with students, and they just don't leave, Elton.

Elton Lin: [laughs] I've had a few of those… I've had a few of those experiences myself as well, but no, that's… the moral of the story is that you can study dance and go to med school.

Giles Eady: You sure can.

Elton Lin: If you've cut anything out of this conversation, maybe that's one of those things.

But yeah, hey, let's launch into some questions, Giles. Again, thankful that you're here.

You know, certainly it's 2025, and there's been a lot that's been going on since, obviously, the pandemic. The pandemic brought in a lot of changes; a lot of schools went test-optional, and there's been a trend to go back to test-required for a lot of top schools.

But, I mean, broadly, we can talk about testing, but I would love to see what's… what has changed for Emory since 2020. Because there certainly has been—you know, 2021, even some of these intermediate years have been some shifts in what… you know, the landscape has changed a bit. There are situations going on politically right now that may be changing, but tell me about what are some of the biggest changes since 2020 that [are] impacting Emory right now.

Giles Eady: Well, you mentioned one of the changes. In 2020, we became test-optional. And the conversation is ongoing [of] whether or not we will be test-optional, test-required… or even test-flexible.

The conversation is still happening, but what we have seen from becoming test-optional is that it's really made Emory way more accessible to more populations that may have self-selected out of Emory in the first place. And what we found is that we enrolled the same kind of students, with or without testing.

And it's interesting: sometimes the students that don't submit test scores, when they're admitted just for funsies, we'll see, “okay, did you take the test at all?” And then we look at the test scores, and we see, oh, it was the same as the students who did submit testing.

So we found that—you know, I've always felt that testing has never been the make-or-break thing with our admission process, but being in a test-optional world, we've really been able to see that it's really… it doesn't alter much about the student that does come to Emory and do exceptionally well.

So that's been, probably, the biggest change since 2020. Certainly, how we do our work has changed, due to many federal mandates that have come down; namely, we're no longer able to see race in the admission process. Contrary to proper belief, race was never a way that we made admission decisions. People think that, you know, we looked at race and said, “yes, if you're this race, you're automatically admitted.” Well, for us in most institutions of higher education, race was just a factor, but still… no matter the race, we want to know that you're prepared for the rigor that you're going to encounter. And if you're not prepared, then that's just that. So that's been a change.

But also, on the access side—access piece at Emory, we have really strengthened our financial aid at Emory. Just announced, about a month ago, is that for family incomes under $200,000 [a year]... your tuition at Emory is now zero. So we are really strengthening that financial aid budget, and we're loan-free as well, so if you do receive need-based aid at Emory, it won't have student loans with it. It’s just really been great in helping to increase access to Emory. So if a student is admitted, cost should not be a factor to keep them away. And they can really come and focus on just doing well.

So those, I think, have been the biggest changes.

Elton Lin: I want to cover the first few things you mentioned, just to kind of dig in a little bit more, just to make sure it's ultra clear, because I feel like there are schools that have come out and very decisively said that they think standardized testing is important. I mean, it's not everything, but certainly is, as an additional data point in the review process, a very helpful data point, with going so far as to say that we're going to include as a… we're going to become test-required.

And then other schools that have remained test-optional… we did interview a couple schools prior to you, one of them basically coming out and saying, you really should plan on taking your test, because even though we're test-optional it's really… we do consider it as an important data point.

So… I have interviewed you multiple times. I do know what your answer is in previous sessions. But… is this one of those things where Emory… I mean, [is] certainly test-optional in order to make sure that you are reaching a broader range of students, and students that Emory would definitely want, but is there a change in the, perhaps, impression of what a test score might be? 

… I think it's such a hazy thing for a lot of top universities and certain schools are saying different things about it. What, really, is Emory's perspective on it?

Giles Eady: Well, the thing about testing in a test-optional world, especially when people do report test scores: they tend to only report test scores that are skewed towards the higher end of things. And so, that's all we have to report when we do have testing, and so it gives, to me, an inaccurate view of the applicant pool with their test scores. So there tend to be—in a test-optional world, they tend to be skewed on the higher end of things.

But testing, as long as I've worked in admission at Emory, has never been a make-or-break thing. It’s kind of a thing that… I won’t say we gloss over, but it’s like—”okay, test scores are good—awesome.” And good test scores—I mean, there’s not really one good test score. Most students who do submit scores to Emory, they are above the national average for testing. SAT, above the national average, is somewhere like 1100 or better. ACT, it’s like 28 or better. You're well above the national average at that point.

And so, we much rather spend time looking at 4 years of courses—so that's curriculum that you had in your school, your performance in the classes—more than we will on testing, because testing can be subjective.

Example I give all the time: one of the territories that I also represent for Emory is the Caribbean, where I see students with varying test scores. Math section—typically across the board, great. But oftentimes, in the critical reading sections of the test, it can sometimes be a little wonky, and it's not because the students don't read or write well—because in some cases they probably read or write well better than most of us in the States, because they speak the Queen's English, but… In coming to know more about them, it's context that they're missing that we have with the tests in the United States that can affect the score.

And then also, I think about the things that some of those students have to go through to even take the test. I know, especially during the pandemic, tests were scheduled on certain islands, and then after the pandemic, they suddenly got canceled. And so, unless a student had exceptional means, they had to not take the test because they couldn't go elsewhere to take the test.

So… if we just strictly looked for a test score in cases like that, I know we would continue to miss out on brilliant students, who just, due to a lack of opportunity, just could not do it.

Giles Eady: So… yeah, it is not a make-or-break thing for us. We'd much rather spend time looking at the curriculum and grades in your school, so…

Elton Lin: Got it, got it. First thing: I want to congratulate you on having California and [the] Caribbean. I mean, that's another conversation, but great work.

Giles Eady: [laughs]

Elton Lin: [laughs] Loving that one.

But… the second thing you brought up, which—you didn't bring up the word diversity, but… you kind of alluded to that, really. And I think the reality is that, certainly, it feels like an overheated word, which it shouldn't be. And I think the reality is that… and perhaps there is maybe a misconception that it really is… [that] admissions decisions are based on perhaps an ethnic group.

But at the same time, a school like Emory University still prioritizes wanting to have a diverse class, a class where people are from different backgrounds. How do you do it, then, if it's not a quota for perhaps an ethnic background—which seems a little bit antiquated—how else do you achieve some of the diversity goals that Emory might be interested in?

Giles Eady: Well, for starters, we don't have a quota with it. It's just—we seek to enroll as many students from as many diverse backgrounds as possible—and not even thinking about race [when going] about it. When you seek students from different socioeconomic backgrounds, from different geographical backgrounds, and even experiences, the byproduct of that is a very racially diverse class. It's not something that you go to say that if you go to look for this race, you're gonna get this thing. It's just: syncing those—all those things together—you get a diverse class.

And it's just something that we have always prioritized at Emory in making sure that we have multiple types of people on campus. If we have all the same people on campus, not much learning happens, because it's so homogenous to that point; and a big part of college is being exposed to different perspectives, so we make sure we put different perspectives in the class that we enroll. And like I said, the byproduct of it is a really racially diverse class.

We can't see race—it's not something that we can see at all. When I open the application, it is not there. We get race once the class is enrolled, and everyone's in the seats and at Emory—that's when we see what the racial background makeup was. It's not something that we can see at all, so…

Elton Lin: Okay. So… what I hear you saying is that there is maybe some intentionality with trying to build a socio-economically diverse class, and therein lies opportunities to reach just different students from different backgrounds inherently, right? Okay, all right, got it.

Alright, let's move on to other exciting topics like artificial intelligence. … With that being said, there's a couple of things. Number one, we can… I would love to hear about what you are encountering as it relates to… I mean, I don't want to say it's a mundane topic to say that students are using AI to write essays, but that's… this seems like a very forefront kind of conversation and topic, and we'd love to hear—I mean, we've asked other admission reps, “can you spot an AI essay,” right?

And so I would love to hear a little bit more about, like, how the team is perhaps approaching essays; when you get something like that, are you aware of it? Are you cognizant of it? Can you spot it? And what are your thoughts?

And then maybe from the other side… there also have been other university admission offices that say: “we are looking at integrating AI as part of our admission systems, not because we're trying to… we're just trying to reduce time and make sure that we get responses in time back to students.”

Like, for example, UT Austin has been delayed a few times, as you probably know, and… and there's influx and outflux of staff, I'm sure, at admissions offices; so there's a sense of, like, “how do we integrate AI for our own systems in order to perhaps streamline… maybe review apps a little bit more efficiently, a little bit more quickly.”

So: would love to hear how AI is impacting you from the read[er] side, and perhaps from the operational side.

Giles Eady: Well, I will tell you: Elton, I remember doing this chat with you about three years ago, and you gave an introduction to Emory. And you put Emory into ChatGPT, and [it] spit it out. And when you gave that introduction to Emory, I was like, “Wow, that is, like, impressive. Like, Elton really did his research on Emory.” And then you told me that it was ChatGPT.

I, three years ago, could not spot the difference. But, three years later, having interacted with it myself, and seeing more of it—an AI-generated essay, you can now spot a mile away—I think, with my colleagues. It reeks.

I think that certainly using AI as a tool to write the essay is totally fine, but if you're using AI to write your essay, to make a really good essay—you have to put more into it to get a good essay out. And if you're doing that, you're essentially writing an essay yourself. So, it's glaringly apparent when AI is used in making the essay.

Now, it's not to say it can't be used, because certainly, it's a great tool for proofreading, and even helping students to craft how they might transition things in an essay. So: I am all for it being a tool—but not the thing that writes the essay.

As far as the university's policy we've adopted with AI, [it] is that certainly we know that students will use AI at Emory. However, if you are using AI strictly for your assignments, we do have AI trackers on campus, so it can let us know about how much of your work was AI-driven. And if the majority of your work is AI-driven, the policy that Emory's taking is that it's the same as plagiarism. So if you plagiarize work, there are consequences for that at Emory, so… it is a tool, but it is not the thing that you use to write your original—or it's not original work, but used to do your work.

As far as on the other side… we're exploring ways in our office to use AI. Where we are very clear at the moment is that it cannot and will not replace the human voice, because AI doesn't—I think—do a good job of understanding nuance, and also context, in addition to getting to know the person and emotion. And so that's why we have humans read the applications, because there are humans applying with different circumstances, different contexts. And so, I don't think it's going to replace that anytime soon.

I won't say that it won't at all, because AI has totally surprised me in its advent, but certainly, we're still gonna have a human voice with it.

But where we're exploring AI is for things like helping to summarize school profiles. So, of course, we read [from] high schools from all over the world, and sometimes we have a lot of good information about the high school that helps us to know them, and other times we don't. So AI could be helpful in helping an admission office to surmise where the student is coming from. That might speed the read-up a little bit so that we can get through the file a little faster. 

Even… it might help to summarize a student's academic history. In some cases, it might not… someone's academic history might not be as straightforward as: they took high school courses and they have a transcript. Many of you guys take courses outside of high school. You do summer programs that have coursework involved with them, and so sometimes it's a puzzle piece for us to kind of put sequentially how things were done, and it helps [us] make sense of it. 

And then also, when you guys come in with credit from different colleges and so forth, we have to look and see if there's a course at Emory that directly correlates to it before we can give you credit. We're looking to see if AI can help us to see, like, “okay, this course that you may have taken at Saddleback relates to this course at Emory.”

So, [those are] ways that we might be using it, but we're still going to have the human touch and human voice with reviewing the applications.

Elton Lin: Got it, got it. And maybe the last one before we get into a couple of specific… and I will promise to make sure we… there's a lot of good questions in there. I'll save—I had an ED question, but I'm gonna save it for Q&A, because I think that's gonna be a… that's gonna be good times, Giles.

Giles Eady: Alright.

Elton Lin: But before we get into some very Emory-specific questions… sort of as we're programming and those kinds of things… obviously there's been a lot of pressure, perhaps politically, from the Trump administration as it relates to a lot of universities, and there's been a lot of funding gaps and funding crises that universities have been facing. Is Emory facing any kind of similar pressure, and is that impacting undergraduate admission in any way?

Giles Eady: So, no impact to undergrad admission, for starters. What’s happened is not affecting how we do our work at all.

Where we have seen changes: certainly Emory was the recipient of quite a number of National Institute of Health grants that we use to conduct research, namely health science research, at Emory. We lost a significant amount of NIH grants, of which the Emory University has absorbed to keep research going. And so, what that has meant for campus is a budget cut to the tune of about 30% on campus. We've had to cut—tighten our belt in… a few places on campus, but we've been very intentional about it not affecting the student experience, be it in the admission process or even while they're there.

Certainly it has meant… staff—hiring freezes on campus… we've not seen increases in raises at Emory, and even how departments operate—we've had to cut our budgets. So, that's the impact it's had on us, but certainly not on the student, so…

Elton Lin: Alright, so no raises—or a raise freeze, unfortunately. I appreciate it.

So, let's get into a little bit… I think one of the more… it's both interesting opportunity, and also confusing, to a degree, is this aspect—this kind of Emory/Emory-Oxford kind of dual identity experience and existence, so I'd love to hear a little bit more from your perspective. I mean, we can certainly search online and read about the program itself, but: what type of students are you looking for for each of these programs?

And I don't wanna… as a person who works with students, I do feel like there is an admissions threshold difference between the two schools—between the two campuses. I know that's an oversimplification, but I'd love to hear from the admissions side. Like, what type of students are you looking for? Like, is it… is there a… can someone be admitted to Oxford and not admitted to Emory campus, right?

Tell us a little bit—show us a little bit of light from the admissions side, how you see the two campuses.

Giles Eady: Okay, so certainly when one applies to Emory for undergraduate studies, they have to choose one of our two campuses for the first two years of their time at Emory. After those two years, everyone comes to the Atlanta campus, and that's where you start your major.

Another note: no one applies to a major at Emory. You simply apply to one or both of our colleges, and then from there, you go into your major.

So, with our two colleges, if you do apply to both campuses, you receive two distinct, independent decisions, so the decisions have no bearing on each other. But they all lead to the same place, so that means that you can be admitted to one campus and not the other, or both campuses.

So [as to] which campus to apply to, it really comes down to a personal preference. I say that the same kind of students can thrive on both campuses. We look for the same things in applicants. It's just really down to: what kind of vibe do you want for the first two years?

Oxford College: it looks and feels like a small traditional liberal arts college, because that's exactly what it is. It is just first and second year students, only about 1,000 total there, with an average class size of about 17. So, it is really designed to have a very intimate academic experience.

Whereas the Emory College campus, located on the University campus in Atlanta: we enroll about 1,450 students a year on that campus, with an average class size of about 25. That campus is among all the other graduate professional schools we do have on campus.

So it really comes down to: do you want the big academic environment in the city, or do you want a smaller, more intimate academic environment that ultimately leads to the big academic environment in the city? So, it is two flavors of Emory; one campus is not lesser than the other, and we won't consider you for a campus unless you tell us you want to be considered.

So, I see merits to nothing but merits to attending either campus. Either campus has opportunities that the other does not have.

For instance, at Oxford College, we just rolled out a program where you can start your first semester at Oxford in the United Kingdom. So we have a London start with Oxford College, where you spend the first semester in London with a cohort of Oxford students, and yes, you do need to spend time at that Oxford as well. When you're there—that's where Oxford College in Georgia got its name, so there's some kinship there. So that's a unique program that Oxford College has that you won't get on the Emory College campus.

If you're someone who wants to be close to the research that's happening at Emory, you might find yourself on the Emory College campus, where most of the research is conducted.

But it's all one Emory, and so students on either campus can go back and forth and utilize any resource on either campus. It's just that those campuses are where you live and where you do your coursework, but the coursework is the same, so there's nothing different there. Even professors teach on both campuses. So it really is a personal preference as to what kind of vibe you want for the first two years.

Elton Lin: It's interesting, because I think this is the first time I've heard about the London program, which does harken back to some of the programs that Northeastern has been doing for their students—for first-year students—with regards to studying abroad in that first semester or the first year. And… yeah, certainly it's an interesting experience, and I think, by and large, for a lot of our Northeastern students, it's been a very positive experience.

Maybe just a quick follow-up question on the Oxford is that… I mean, I've had an Oxford student who's had an amazing experience starting in Oxford and finishing at Emory, but certainly there's some commentary online that might hint at just some integration problems between, like: if you're spending two years in Oxford, there's maybe some dissonance with regards to kind of coming into the Emory College campus. 

I'm wondering: are there ways that Emory is—or things that Emory is doing to maybe bridge that gap a little better, to really kind of help integrate those students in the community in a more effective way?

Giles Eady: Well, I think one of the most powerful things about it is that you're coming to the Atlanta campus with 500 of your classmates that you got to know at Oxford College as well. So that's one way that is a great integration to campus.

But also, as I mentioned earlier, resources are open to you on the Atlanta campus as well. So we have students who participate in clubs and organizations on the Atlanta campus already, in their years at Oxford College. That's another way that they integrate. We even have days where we bring students… from Oxford to the Atlanta campus to even see what their coursework is going to be like on the Atlanta campus, to meet the professors.

So, there's many ways that we try to get them integrated. I think it's more of a fear that people have before they do it, and then once I get there, they're like, “oh yeah, like, this is… I'm with my peers that did the same thing.”

And personally, in a classroom setting, I can distinguish the Oxford students versus the Emory College students, because they tend to be the more engaged students. They're always in the front row, and they're the ones that I can depend on that will ask the questions in class, because that is what they've gotten to know at Oxford College.

Elton Lin: Got it, got it. 

Let’s get into… I think another thing that I think has come up… I don't want to overtly say it's Emory's reputation, but certainly the two very high-profile programs at Emory [are] students who want to be pre-med and go to med school, and then the business school at Emory is also outstanding, right? And then with that, there's a certain sense of both academic rigor—a lot of students are very motivated—and then there's also a lot of, you know, your pre-professional business students who are very career-minded. And that tends to really dominate—from what I understand, dominate the culture at Emory.

I think, maybe another question with regards to just cultural fit: if I'm coming in and I'm not part of this ultra, you know, maybe, hyper-aggressive pre-med group, or I'm not trying to get into one of the big five consulting firms the moment I graduate, is there a place for me? What is the culture of Emory like?

Giles Eady: Well, the culture of Emory—I think what you described is really on the front end. The students we do have are naturally really driven, and they come in day one ready to go, and [for] people like myself and other faculty members, one of our jobs is to slow you down, because we want you to take things as an order to how you do things. I will tell a student, you're not here in college to become a doctor. That's why you're going to go to medical school. There are steps you have to go through to become a physician.

And ultimately, one of the great things I know that the Pre-Health Advising Program does is it helps students to understand what it is in health sciences that they are actually interested in. For instance, I use my wife as an example. My wife went to college wanting to be a physician, strictly a physician, nothing else, and had never explored any other area of health science, but my wife has a very artistic background, and it was suggested to her that she consider dentistry. [She] had never thought about dentistry, but through her Pre-Health Advising Program, they sent her to a dental program over the summer. Absolutely loved it. And so, today, my wife is a prosthodontist. Went to dental school and did another four years residency in prosthodontics, and so she's able to bridge the two things.

And so one of the things that the Pre-Health Advising Program does is help students find their actual niche. Some people aren't MD as much as they think they are. Some people are PhD! And so we help people decipher… whether you're going to be the researcher or you're going to be the clinician. Both are very necessary, and both need passionate people to do them.

Even with other programs, we help people to see, like, “okay”—I see it often with people wanting to go to law school—”Okay, I just want to go to law school, but I don't necessarily know why. And so let me major in a humanity or social science [major] to go to law school, when we have students that—we might find that they might be a good fit for law school in the sciences. 

So, we do a good job, I think, of shaking things up for students to really, truly find their passions. And I do think, ultimately, what you do get are very interdisciplinary students. They may be pre-med, they may be pre-business, or they may be business, but they also may be arts at the same time. They might be a social science at the same time.

I've even seen students with a social science major who do go into business, because a lot of these corporations will say, “okay, we've got enough of the business students, but where are the philosophy majors that really add a lot to our corporations as well?” Our medical school says the same thing as well. They're like, “we're done with the science majors, we have too many of them. Where are the other majors that will be great doctors as well?”

So… I do believe there's certainly a place for students with other interests outside of those that you mentioned. It's just [that] those are the ones that, in the front end, are certainly big majors that we enroll… and they make the most noise, I think, in the beginning, but… we do shake things up while you're there, and help students truly find their passion.

Elton Lin: One last question before we go to questions from our audience is that, I… I'll say this as a private counselor working with families here in the Bay Area. I do feel like there is… there definitely is a set of families who are very aware of Emory, but there's certainly a set of families who are not as aware of Emory, to where it's like, you know, I'm personally convinced that at Emory's an outstanding university—there's a lot of resources, it is good for a certain type of student, but… but there's a little bit of… some wavering name recognition among certain audiences, right? So I feel like… I find myself always having to sell Emory.

And I remember having Pepperdine's admissions director on as well. And we were talking about, like, what are some outcomes that Pepperdine's really proud of? And she was mentioning that they have an over 90% matriculation rate to med school, so Pepperdine students—because there's one lady who counsels every student who wants to apply to med school at Pepperdine.

So, I mean, maybe as a way to come back… what are some outcomes for Emory that I think Emory's really proud of, that perhaps maybe sets Emory apart, that might convince somebody who's listening, who may not really know Emory outright from a name—but maybe, oh my goodness, you know, an inordinate amount of business students end up getting recruited into banking, or maybe there's med school support that's really outstanding.

What are some outcomes that I think Emory's really proud of?

Giles Eady: Well, one of them you just mentioned, the med school acceptance rate, is outstanding at Emory. Emory is a major health hub as a whole. In the Emory University system, we have 11 hospitals… five of them directly on our campus. Our next-door neighbor at Emory is the CDC, so the Center for Disease Control—it actually is a research site for Emory students. So those resources really aid our students in health sciences. So we have great outcomes there.

But I think one of the best outcomes we have is that, after graduating, within 6 months, we had something like a 98% placement rate for students into either employment or graduate professional schools. So, in essence, we like to make sure everyone has something to do once they graduate, and that they're proud of, too.

So, I think those are some of our…

[A brief connection issue.]

I thought I was leaving you there for a second, Elton.

Elton Lin: We got you back, we got you back. [laughs]

Giles Eady: [laughs] Got me back, okay.

So those are certainly some outcomes that we're very proud of at Emory. And I think one of the best outcomes, too, is that: not only do we graduate students who are well-educated and well-prepared for their careers and their professions, but also we go to great lengths to make sure that we graduate good people—good people who have taken really thoughtful… a really thoughtful journey of self to get to know self, so that they are whole people when they leave and go into their profession.

It's not just robots who are going to go do their jobs, but people who are passionate, who come alive when they're doing their jobs. I know: if you're going to be my physician, I want you to come alive when you talk about medicine. I want it to mean that much to you. And so we try to graduate people with that kind of passion and fervor for giving back to the world.

Elton Lin: Got it, got it. Thanks, Giles, I appreciate it.

So, Anna—I'm gonna invite Anna to come back. And we have some good questions, so we're gonna… some of it's gonna be… harkening back to our Oxford College conversation. Some of it is gonna be some ED talk—but Anna, what are… let’s kind of go through some of our questions.

Anna Lu: Yeah, for sure.

So, I guess on the ED topic, we have a question about ED1 and ED2 admit rates this year. So, they ask if you expect any meaningful changes in those admit rates this year, specifically considering the likely decrease in international student applications, among other factors.

Giles Eady: The best answer I can give you is: I do not know.

One, we have not started to read applications just yet, and the deadlines have not passed. So, the first Early Decision deadline is November 1st. We don't know how many applications we're gonna receive until that deadline. And then once we see the applications, and we see who's in the application pool, then we respond accordingly.

So just for everyone's edification: an acceptance rate is not something typically that an admission office sets. But it is in response to how many people applied to the institution versus how many seats we have available.

So, in the past couple years, we've been somewhere around 30% acceptance rate with Early Decision. We've had some very strong Early Decision pools to come through. And so, last year, about 49% of the enrolled class came from Early Decision, because we just really had a very strong Early Decision pool.

Now, what that trend looks like this coming year: I don't know. The deadline has not come yet, so once it comes, we'll know more information at that point.

Elton Lin: Just as a quick follow-up, is there a palpable admit rate difference between ED1 and ED2?

Giles Eady: In my experience, it has been—and it's—again, an acceptance rate is not what we set.

Elton Lin: Yeah, understood.

Giles Eady: It's just who applies. I tend to think that we don't see as strong of an applicant in Early Decision 2, and so if strong applicants came in Early Decision 2, we'll gladly admit them. But, more of the stronger and honest students who want to be there, because they are applying Early Decision, we do see in ED1.

Elton Lin: So if I were to translate your question—or your response—real quickly, in a sense where, like, you're seeing sort of a higher caliber student coming on ED1; therefore, more students will be admitted on ED1… and [for] ED2, maybe the pool is not as strong, so that perhaps maybe the admit rate might be affected, because there aren't as many students accepted on that round, is that correct?

Giles Eady: Well done.

Elton Lin: All right. Hire me on, Giles, come on, for crying [out loud]...

Giles Eady: [laughs]

Anna Lu: I guess, kind of to bridge that gap, and then… we had an earlier conversation about the Oxford/Emory campuses, but I think some people still want some clarification, kind of, on how the application process to applying to these two different campuses works, including, for example, if you apply ED1 to Emory, and then you're also interested in Oxford, but then you're only admitted to Oxford and not Emory. Are you still bound by ED1? Are you not? I think you mentioned earlier that they're entirely separate, but if you could go into the details about that.

Giles Eady: Yes, so the application is the same application for both campuses. You just check on the application to which campus or campuses you'd like to apply. You can apply to one campus Early Decision, the other regular, or you can do both Early Decision if you'd like. If you do both Early Decision, and you're admitted to both, you get to choose which one you want at that point. If you do one Early Decision and you're admitted to that place Early Decision, just like any early decision plan, you're bound to go there.

But, with the decision making, they're totally separate. So, literally, if a student applies to both places, we'll make an Emory decision first, and then we'll go make an Oxford decision. Maybe we'll do the other way around. Sometimes we might do the Oxford decision first, and then the Emory College decision. But the decisions never have any bearing on each other.

So that's the way we do it.

Anna Lu: Great.

I guess to continue on the train of things that we've talked about prior: there is a student who, I believe, is interested in pre-med, and they noticed, again, that Emory leads to a very high acceptance rate to med school after college. You talked about this a little bit, but can you go further into the opportunities?

You mentioned the hospitals… on campus, but why is this acceptance rate so different from other colleges, perhaps, and are there any other special features or courses or resources that Emory offers in light of pre-med?

Giles Eady: Well, I think one of the best resources is our Pre-Health Advising, and not only are they advising on the things you need to do to maybe get into medical school, but I think one of the great things they do is advising on when students should apply.

Our goal with them in the Pre-Health Advising is that we want students to complete one application period, not multiple application periods. We should… we don't want them applying multiple years to medical school. We want you to be able to put one application in and [have] it be your best application.

And in some cases, students—it might not be that after 4 years, that they are ready to go to medical school. So our people are really adept at knowing, like, okay, it might mean [that] for you to get an acceptance to medical school, you might take a year after graduating from Emory, and you might do some additional research, or you might get some clinical experience, or you might do a post-bac program, so that we feel confident that you will have an acceptance to medical school when you do apply.

So they're very good at making sure you know not only how to apply, but when to apply. I think that's one thing.

And yes, our healthcare resources, and namely our own medical school, is very helpful in advising our students in what they need to do to be accepted into medical schools. Our medical school does accept Emory students—a small number, because it is a small medical school. Out of the 150 that they enroll a year, maybe 15 to 20 of them came from Emory. But certainly they are a good resource in our Pre-Health Advising… and how to prepare our students to be accepted to some of the nation and world's best medical schools.

Anna Lu: Sounds like a lot of hands-on—essentially—help there.

Giles Eady: Yes.

Anna Lu: We also have a question about college essays—so, specifically about supplementals. They want to know if you have any particularly opinionated “do or don'ts” for answering the Emory supplementals.

Giles Eady: My advice for the supplementals is to answer the question. There's no correct answer to the question, just simply answer the question. If you answer the question in a few words, great. If you answer it in the maximum number of words that you can submit for it, awesome. Answer the question, whatever you do.

Now, what you don't do is cut and paste. Don't regurgitate something that I'm seeing—that's on my [Emory’s] website. Don't do that—which, we have kind of controlled for that, being that the questions are not pertaining to anything at Emory. They really are questions that only you can answer, because they kind of relate back to you.

So just simply answer the question; be yourself in the process. The more authentic to who you are, the better you help us getting to know you and making that decision.

Elton Lin: Don't copy and paste.

Giles Eady: No copy and paste.

Elton Lin: It's funny, I don't know how you can copy and paste on those Emory supplement essays—essay prompts. I mean, there's… I've always enjoyed them—they've always been really interesting—and you guys always kept them short, too. They've not been, like, 500 words on this and that. So, thank you. Thank you, Giles, personally, for that.

Anna Lu: For sure, it's, what, is it a 150 word limit?

Giles Eady: Mmhmm.

Anna Lu: Yep.

Some general questions about holistic review, I believe, of applications, from a lot of different venues. So, there are some questions about: are online high school students' applications read with other online homeschool applications, or are they read based on their home location? How do you view, maybe, people coming from different backgrounds in that sense?

How do you look at a transcript that has changed so much over the years? Maybe if, freshman year, they have a pretty poor performance, but then over time, you see their grades do better. 

How do you kind of tackle all these different situations in your holistic review process?

Giles Eady: Well, the first goal in a holistic application review is to get context. Before anything else, you want to get context, be it where the student is coming from, what courses are available to them, and even kind of what their home environment is like, and that really helps inform a lot of things that we see in the application.

So I know one of the questions you had was pertaining to homeschool students. So… we look at you in the territory, where you're coming from: so if you are living in the Bay Area, or the Caribbean, or Hawaii, or Alaska, or any U.S. territory, and happen to be homeschooled, I'll see your application.

But my goal is to get context. What kind of homeschool [are] you're doing? Are you a part of an association, or is it strictly just you and your guardians doing that? I want to get that context to see what it is you're doing, and then how well you're doing in those courses.

Also, with students looking at, maybe, poor performance in the earlier years of high school, we understand, like… we're not looking for perfection; we want students who are hardworking. I will say, if there's gonna be trends in grades, we prefer to see an upward trend, as opposed to a downward trend in grades.

We don't spend a whole lot of time looking at freshman year of high school, because we understand that it's a really transitional year for a lot of students between middle school and high school, so it's not the best indicator of collegiate success; but certainly, as you progress, things need to be awesome. I won't say awesome, but—just need to be good, need to be your best work.

I think… did I cover everything, Anna?

Anna Lu: Yeah, pretty much. Thank you so much. I kind of rattled them off at you, so I appreciate you tackling all those.

And I guess… there was someone who just wants to know—I mean, you covered it, again, a little bit earlier, but are there any that you didn't mention, or that you want to expand on—any big changes at Emory for this ‘25-26 admissions cycle?

Giles Eady: I think the big thing is the financial aid piece. That has been huge for incomes under $200,000—tuition being zero—I think that's gonna be huge, and if I had to be a betting man, I would imagine that we're gonna see an influx of applications because of that.

But again, it is the great unknown, because our deadlines have not passed yet, so we'll see what happens.

Anna Lu: Alright, Elton, what do you think of the remaining questions if we have the time?

Elton Lin: Yeah, we have some really specific ones for you, because I feel like this is… I think these are kind of good questions for you, and super-specific.

Yeah, I'll throw it out, because I do know the situation, and so… so the student has to—is thinking about the two rec letters… for the Common App. They're thinking about either a math teacher from 11th grade, or a bio teacher from senior year, but the student is a bio pre-med major. And so, we have sort of our own perspective on it, but I think from the admissions side, are there any… is there any sort of contour that you see among those two options that… coming from your own perspective…

Giles Eady: I say choose the one that can write you the best recommendation.

Elton Lin: Yeah.

Giles Eady: It's not about the subject so much, because they're not telling me very much about your propensity for the subject most times. It is really about you, the student. How hardworking are you of a student?

And I think you should choose the person who can do that the best, and it's not always in the subject that you want to study. It could be that class that you really had to work hard to get that A in… that professor—that teacher might not be within the subject that you want to study, but can certainly attest to how hardworking you are. So that's a good recommendation.

Elton Lin: What are you looking for in a rec letter? Let me ask you, like… you probably read a ton of these rec letters… I surmise that some of these rec letters will sound the same, but what are you looking for exactly in a rec letter?

Giles Eady: Well, I look for trends in rec letters, and when I say trends, I don't just settle with one rec letter, because it's one person's opinion. But when I see the same kind of sentiments [across] multiple recommendations: “okay, I'm understanding kind of what a trend is about this student and what they think about this student.” When I do see maybe one rec letter says this, and the other one says [something else], it makes me ask questions: “Okay, what's the disconnect here?” So, it's really more so trends than it is the actual nuance in what the letter is saying.

Now, it certainly jumps out when a letter is like, “this student is the best student I've ever had in my career.” That certainly stands out, like, “whoa, okay, I need to look really close at this student,” but—it's totally fine, most people won't have those recommendations. Especially if you attend a large high school where you are one of hundreds of recommendations that these teachers are writing… I get it. And most students who are admitted will just have those middle-of-the-road recommendations, so…

Elton Lin: Got it, got it. So you're looking for how… when you say trends, you're looking for, like, is the application and perhaps the academic record, the essays, and then the rec letter, are they sort of painting a similar narrative, if you will, or…

Giles Eady: Exactly, and then also [if] multiple letters are kind of painting that same narrative, so…

Elton Lin: Okay, cool, cool.

And Anna, do you want to throw out the last question?

Anna Lu: Yeah, sure!

So someone has a question—I think they're a tennis player who devotes a lot of time to that. So, I guess in the vein of extracurricular activities, what happens if, you know, you only have one really strong extracurricular activity—in this case, tennis—that might come at the cost of time for others? What do you think about this “breadth versus depth” for extracurricular?

Giles Eady: That's awesome. That is awesome.

We care more about the quality of involvement versus the quantity. And the quality is whatever you determine it to be. If it means a lot to you, it means a lot to me. To spend a lot of hours playing tennis, you're probably really good at it. You probably are really accomplished at it, and to be accomplished, it takes a lot of dedication, a lot of time and energy, and just “stick to it”-ness, to just be able to do that at a high level, which can translate to you being those same things academically.

So it is not about the quantity, but the quality.

Elton Lin: Oh, that’s a relief, especially as a tennis player. I mean, I'm excited. That's good, that's good to hear, so…

Giles Eady: [laughs] Hey, Elton, you’ll like us; our tennis team won the national championship last year, so…

Elton Lin: Hey, Giles, honestly, I'm keeping an eye on D3 Tennis at Emory, because I have a student who's a tennis player as well, so… I've clicked on a few links, don't worry. I've kept them.

But, no, just… hey, Giles, I appreciate you coming on with us. Thank you so much for taking some time. I know you've had a busy West Coast trip, and it's always—always appreciate you, not just as giving a good glimpse into the admissions process, but appreciate you as a person, and just being yourself fully on our show for so many years. You even remember me throwing you a ChatGPT intro of you! Good memory on that, man.

Alright, thank you so much; appreciate everybody coming on. We have, forthcoming on our webinar series, we do have… likely some essay review webinar series, some other conversations. We'll get into extracurricular planning, probably come near the end of the year, so: stick around, keep an eye on the emails, but—appreciate having everyone here, and thank you so much again, Giles. Appreciate it.

Giles Eady: My pleasure.

Elton Lin: Alright. Take care, everybody. Giles, have a safe trip back tomorrow, and we'll talk, we'll be in touch.

Giles Eady: Sounds good.

Anna Lu: Thank you, everybody.

Elton Lin: Alright, take care, everybody. See ya.

Giles Eady: Bye.

Elton Lin: Bye.