Thanks for sharing another great article, Bostonian!
It is good to raise awareness of this type of admissions consideration, increasing transparency of how one's college application may be evaluated. That said, online clicks may be a poor proxy for genuine IRL interest in a particular institution.
For example, students with limited access to technology may delay in clicking and may make fewer clicks. Those who have demanding time commitments such as work, babysitting siblings while parents work, volunteerism, etc, may also earn lower scores on their "engagement" when that is based on clicks.
Meanwhile other students could easily game the process with multiple clicks. Those with college coaches, mentors, etc may begin to click a lot without genuine interest... and may amass high scores for "engagement" at multiple institutions simply by being coached to click. If this occurs, then an institution's yield may not increase (as they may offer admissions to students who've signaled high interest to multiple institutions).
Hopefully the engagement score based on clicks is a small consideration among other factors.
