Washington Goes Goes Fishing In “Holistic” Waters

The University of Washington has scrapped its “admissions index,” a grid that combined standardized test scores and high school grades, resulting in a score on which the admission of about half of the freshman class was based.

Washington automatically accepted students with a rating of 70, which corresponds to, for example, a 1020 SAT, and a 3.9 average; or a 1290 SAT and a 3.64 average.

If a student did not make the admissions index grid grade, admissions officials would review the application using another grid that scored students based on various academic and personal categories.

And now?

Now, every one of about 16,000 applications will get the full treatment, minus a rigid scoring system, as part of Washington’s “holistic” admissions process. Admissions staff members will look at all materials submitted to try to get a complete picture of each applicant, still including test scores and grades, but paying attention to things like personal challenges that an applicant has faced, and displays of leadership beyond the classroom. Basically, any and all relevant experiences will be on the table for application readers to consider.

Critics of this move claim that UW is simply trying to introduce the consideration of race without admitting it, but UW admissions director Philip Ballinger says (or rather, the InsideHigherEd article says he says) that “the new system will not explicitly consider race,” pointing out (and this was presented as a direct quote) that considering race “is against the law.” (Why does Ballinger remind me of Dick Nixon, saying into the tape recorder “… but that would be wrong”?)

Too bad the reporter didn’t inquire into what was meant by that “explicitly,” since considering race has indeed been illegal in Washington ever since voters there passed I-200 in 1998.

The articles closed with a metaphor from Ballinger that is, if you’ll excuse me, all wet.

Ballinger said that the new process will ensure that Washington really gets the best students by looking at the difficulty of the courses a student has taken as well as the challenges he or she has faced in life. “Let’s say our job is to pick the best swimmers,” he said. “Some are in a still lake, some with the current in a stream, and some against a choppy ocean. Students aren’t all in the same pool. There are things that are important to look at, that are not simply quantitative.”

Yes, but some quantitative things remain important, too, despite the protests of some holistic holy warriors. The whole origin, purpose, and effect of standardized tests, after all, is to allow for the meaningful comparison of fish students from different pools.