Colleges Considering the Whole Applicant During Admissions

It looks like public colleges are interested in more than just GPA and ACT scores. More universities now require letters of recommendation, essays and other materials that help them learn about the "whole applicant," instead of just numbers on paper, when admitting students to their schools. Why? To improve the quality of the whole student body, according to this article in the New York Times.

More students than ever are applying to colleges and universities to get educated and start down their dream career paths, and test scores and GPAs are higher than ever. In order to help choose the best candidates and give the school the most diverse, multitalented and vibrant body, admissions representatives are now considering factors such as special talents or successes, overcoming major life obstacles, and community and extracurricular activities.

This "holistic" approach to accepting college applications may make some incoming freshmen nervous, but for many others such as low-income, minority and first-generation students, it is opening new doors. (Interestingly, the New York Times article says, "Minority students tend not to fare well on admissions exams." Author Malcolm Gladwell explains in his book, Blink, that standardized exams which ask for a student's race before the test versus after greatly skew test results.)

Hopefully this broader consideration set for choosing student applicants for a college will make the process more fair for everyone. The article also discusses several barriers that this new "whole applicant" approach can alleviate, including admission of legacy or wealthy candidates without the individual achievements to match, as well as lowering of admission standards to recruit star athletes.

While this more holistic approach can help countless students get the college education they want and need, this is not to say that colleges and universities will not still expect great numerical performance from student applicants.

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