Some schools say they have a hollisitc approach at their applicants meaning they examine them in every possible way. It seems kind of ridiculous/impossible for some schools to look at essay, extracurricular, honors, etc. from each applicant, especially when some schools have over 40k applications per year. What I am asking is is it truly people looking? Or a computer system sorting, etc.?
Holistic varies by college. HYPSM likely will examine every application with a fine toothed comb. Some schools may automatically filter out GPA’s and test scores below a certain cutoff. Other schools if your GPA/test scores are above a certain level you are admitted. Otherwise they will look at the rest of your application.
@TomSrOfBoston How can a school, say like the University of Florida, look at each factor with over 40k applicants in such a small period of time?
Fantastic stats=accepted
Bad states=rejected
In between stats=they look at everything else
@JPGator98 , watch some of the youtube videos of admissions committees in action, or if you are really interested, you can read books on the subject like “The Gatekeepers” which explains the process in detail, right down to the amount of time they spend on each application. @TomSrOfBoston 's post is consistent with that book in that many applications don’t make it to the committee.
Or google “NPR Amherst admissions” – great audio story of the flavor of decisions being made near the completion of an accepted students pool at a top college.
Lot of schools use computer algorithms to weed out those applications that are so far out of range the student has little likelihood of success at the school. And yes, the algorithms do rank those that make it through so admissions knows which ones they need to take a lot of time on as opposed to those that are pretty close to a slam dunk.
Holistic admissions means they look at more than just test scores and GPA to see if a student will be a good fit for the school. But typically you still need some minimum GPA (and possibly test scores) so the school has some confidence you can handle the workload. Schools are looking for students with a high likelihood of graduating.
@InigoMontoya I understand what holistic is but I’m saying, are they really holistic? How can they look at the overall student in such a little amount of time with so many applicants?
@jpgator98 What everyone here is saying is that they don’t look at every application. They filter out those applications of students who are too far out of the range of the schools statistics. Then the look at what remains. The top applications don’t take much time to look at - just checking mostly for red flags. The rest of the applications that make it through the filtering process do get a more thorough look. They are not doing a human reading of every application that comes in the door.
So if you’re slightly out of the range for GPA or scores, but have some other compelling story, that’s when holistic comes into play. It doesn’t mean someone with a 2.0 GPA and killer essays can get admitted to a top school.