Reader Jim Miller sent a link to this article about the University of Washington’s abandoning its former heavy reliance on grades and test scores and moving to a “holistic” admissions system.
Beginning this year, the University of Washington will no longer automatically admit top students based on their high-school grades and test scores.
The university is ditching a statewide student-ranking system called the Admissions Index, which it relied on to admit about half its students. The university is also getting rid of an internal system called the “grid,” which ranked remaining students on a combination of academic and personal factors.
Instead, university staffers plan to read and review every one of the 16,000 annual freshmen applications to come up with a “holistic” assessment of each candidate. Besides academic performance, they will consider factors such as whether a student has overcome personal or social adversity, their leadership skills and their extracurricular interests.
UW officials promise they will not consider race as part of the “holistic” matrix, since that would be illegal in Washington.
Using race as an admissions factor has been illegal in Washington since voters passed Initiative 200 in 1998. A UW official said the new system would not consider race, but would take socioeconomic factors into account.
“It’s a very big shift,” said Philip Ballinger, the UW director of admissions. “The basic difference is that there is no grid anymore, no Admissions Index, no database, no pointing this or weighting that,” he said. “It will allow us to create a full context to understand what a student has done and to know something about a student’s family, history and the opportunities they have or haven’t had.”
Some, however, are skeptical.
… Tim Eyman, a co-sponsor of I-200, said the changes are a “sneaky, underhanded attempt” by the UW to skirt the initiative and give preference to students of color.
One thing the new “holistic” approach will not be is cheap.
The extra work reading applications is expected to cost $200,000 per year, money the UW plans to largely recoup by raising application fees from $38 to about $50. The university plans to add three permanent staffers and hire 20 graduate students part time to help read the applications.
I wonder if UW or other universities will soon implement a new program of Holistic Studies in their Ed Schools to train future admissions personnel on how to tease out what UW admissions director Ballinger called the “full context” of applicants.
This is pathetic. I remember applying to colleges and making sure to put in my “sad” stories about how my father died when I was eight and my single mom had to raise us kids. It was pathetic. My life wasn’t hard, but we all knew that if our ‘sad’ life stories were included it’d give us an edge. I thought it was pathetic then and I do now. It’s all a game to the students applying. We even joked about putting down that we were gay/lesbian in order to get even more consideration…after all, are they going to make us “prove” it?
I refused to list myself as a Native American though. Even though I am a card carrying Indian member I couldn’t bring myself to stoop as low as to ‘use’ that fact to get into school. Disgusting. Who cares what blood runs through my veins? Or what color my skin is? Oh…I forgot…the “enlightened” liberals who run these ridiculous institutions.
“and to know something about a student’s family, history and the opportunities they have or haven’t had.”
So… does that mean that the kid who was fortunate enough to have some kind of tragedy or hardship in his life doesn’t/shouldn’t have to work as hard in school? “Well let’s see here… Johnny got straight A’s but he’s been living in that 3 story house and he drives a BMW. Billy’s a much better candidate. Sure, he only got C’s – but look at this personal history! He rides the bus, his cat got run over when he was 4, and all his clothes are SO last season!”
This kind of nonsense is going to have the same effect Affirmative Action programs do – dumbing down the curriculum and producing stupid graduates.
I can just imagine his first post-college interview. “Yea, I don’t really know much about anything, but hey, um my brother died when I was little and yea… yea… that was tough. Also, I lived in an apartment growing up. AN APARTMENT, while all those other applicants lived in 2-story houses! That means I’m entitled to a job.”
Good ‘ol need based politics. Destroying the value of merit and achievement every day!
This isn’t a sneaky evasion, it’s an open and obvious one. I wish I could attend the application reading training and evaluation sessions.
If I were an applicant today I’d put african american AND native american and dare them to prove me wrong. That’s where all this will lead, racial tribunals like Germany in 1838 or South Africa in 1960.
On the subject of hardships…some research has shown (see William Sedlacek at U of Maryland) that students who have overcome adversity are more apt to succeed in college. Colleges want to admit students who will persevere and graduate, so on that account I see why it’s being looked at more.
Also, UW and other schools _do_ have multiracial categories, so you could put African American and Native American and be recorded as such.
Yeah, this is very stupid in my opinion. People that deserve to be in a top college – i.e. “A” students with the desire to excel – should get in. Not someone who is a “C” student with a sob story, that is RIDICULOUS! No matter what someone has gone through/hasn’t gone through, the people with the top grades deserve to get in. Enough said.