Holistic Admissions

When I was preparing for the College Information Night presentation a few weeks ago I recalled seeing an article about how colleges evaluate applicants.  I went back and found it and wished that the time of the evening would have allowed me to be able to show it, but that just wasn't feasible with everything else we had planned.

Hopefully those of you who attended the presentation were able to get an idea of the factors that can plan into a college application evaluation by the admissions officers who are completing a holistic admissions review.  And for those of you who were not there - the bottom line is that it can be anything.

Holistic admissions review means that the colleges will evaluate students based upon a wide range of factors and not just grades and test scores.  Strength of academic schedule, essays, leadership, community service, activities students are involved with, demonstrated interest, recommendation letters, and interviews are examples of the components colleges may consider when evaluating applicants.

This is a link to the evaluation processing page that one college uses (and a good idea of what many colleges will do) to take your application and convert it over to a one-page form to have a quick snapshot of you.  Be sure to check on the different areas to get a description of what each means.

There were two articles connected to this evaluation page that helped give additional information about how the evaluation of applications is carried out.  Although they were from several years ago, I believe you will still find the content helpful and informative.

How one college evaluates a transcript

Shedding further light on how one college decides