What is holistic admissions???

Young Woman Surrounded By Her Interests Pondering the Future

Take a good look at this image. What do you see?

This sums up holistic admissions ... books, travel, art/design, history, science, anthropology -- the young woman pictured here has diverse interests and presumably diverse experiences and expectations for a college education.

"Holistic admissions" as written, is a university or program admissions process that considers the whole individual. In other words, it involves admissions reviewers looking at more than just academic performance and test scores. Colleges, universities, professional schools, graduate schools value applicant dimensionality, meaning students with more diverse and developed skillsets are in a stronger position for college admissions. This is essential for applicants to know as they prepare for the admissions process, and it is especially true if an applicant is looking at applying to a school known to be competitive or a graduate/professional school, like medical school, where fewer students are admitted than not.

Okay, that all sounds great! Then exactly what are admissions officers, committees, or reviewing faculty looking at beyond the academic and test scores?

That's the million dollar question, but Labyrinth has a million dollar answer.

Let's start by providing a general structure to holistic review admissions for this blog post.

Labyrinth Guide to Holistic Admissions: What Admissions Officers Review

This chart gives a general structure to holistic review admissions.

1. Academic Merit/Review of Metrics - In the middle, in RED, we have the starting point. The academic metrics -- grades, test scores, academic rigor, academic index scores, etc. -- are represented here. This is the black and white data that tells a limited story about how an applicant handled high school or the undergraduate experience. This is the first thing reviewed, and this opens the door to further review or closes it. But, from this point forward, I encourage applicants to see this for what it is. It has great importance in terms of putting applicants in a position to be admitted, but academics aren't what gets students admitted. Grades are not an indicator of the "best students."

2. Personal Attributes & Essential Skills/Understanding of Self - In PINK, we have the deeper review. This is where an applicant develops ideas about self, what their personal attributes are, and how they see themselves in the world. A personal attribute might be "I am a leader" or "I have uncommon levels of empathy" or "I am a logical thinker." And, while it is important to establish these attributes in the essays, reviewers are seeing how these attributes fit their mission or culture. More on this in the next blog post.

3. How Personal Attributes are Shaped By Experiences - In BLUE, this is the dot connecting process for a reviewer. It's one thing for an applicant to write about how they perceive themselves; it's a complete other thing for an applicant to indicate that they have a particular attribute and skill and can completely pinpoint where they honed that attribute and skill. Much more on this in the next blog post.

To recap, this moves from the data -- academic merit cracks the door to admission -- to the more human, lived experiences. Applicants are required to think well beyond how they see themselves. In the next blog post we will examine what specifically admissions officers, committees, and folks doing the evaluation are specifically looking for in their holistic review.

Until then.