[Farm93]

I too have wondered what the admissions office noted in my application.  Did they predict my level of involvement in the Stanford community?  Likely majors?  Were there elements of my essays that had positive or negative comments?  Did my HS teachers help or hurt my cause?  I am sure I could learn a lot about myself and the school through that experience.  Would be fun for sure.

And yet, I can't imagine any admissions office is staffed for these types of trips down memory lane by alumni.  The work required to properly handle these requests is probably not trivial.  The materials might also contain comments that could anger or upset the recipient.  I can't imagine any of the highly selective schools' admissions offices are staffed to meet the customer service level apparently expected by many on this board.  And I doubt many in the admissions office chose that career path so that they could hunt down 20, 30 or 40 year old applications for those seeking to return to a meaningful moment from their past.

My guess is the university would prefer these requests go away for so many reasons.  I can't really blame Stanford, Yale and the rest for deciding to delete older files ASAP as a lot of negative outcomes are possible from these queries.

I guess many are too curious to resist, but the queries are not exactly cost free to the university.

[Farm93]

I too have wondered what the admissions office noted in my application.  Did they predict my level of involvement in the Stanford community?  Likely majors?  Were there elements of my essays that had positive or negative comments?  Did my HS teachers help or hurt my cause?  I am sure I could learn a lot about myself and the school through that experience.  Would be fun for sure.

And yet, I can't imagine any admissions office is staffed for these types of trips down memory lane by alumni.  The work required to properly handle these requests is probably not trivial.  The materials might also contain comments that could anger or upset the recipient.  I can't imagine any of the highly selective schools' admissions offices are staffed to meet the customer service level apparently expected by many on this board.  And I doubt many in the admissions office chose that career path so that they could hunt down 20, 30 or 40 year old applications for those seeking to return to a meaningful moment from their past.

My guess is the university would prefer these requests go away for so many reasons.  I can't really blame Stanford, Yale and the rest for deciding to delete older files ASAP as a lot of negative outcomes are possible from these queries.

I guess many are too curious to resist, but the queries are not exactly cost free to the university.