<p>Tokenadult's thread about holistic admissions (<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/699468-holistic-approach-overrated-admissions-tool-says-researcher-chron-high-ed.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/699468-holistic-approach-overrated-admissions-tool-says-researcher-chron-high-ed.html</a>) got me thinking about what top colleges are looking for in their admitted students. Assume, for the moment, that an elite college (that has been around for hundreds of years, has an enviable reputation, and wants to enhance that reputation in the decades to come) could know the outcomes of its accepted students thirty years hence. I think they would strive to admit a diverse class of students that might include these kinds of outcomes:</p>
<ul>
<li>those who enter politics become presidents and senators (or heads of state outside the US)</li>
<li>those who enter law become Supreme Court justices, senior partners at elite law firms, or [shudder] tort lawyers winning billion-dollar settlements</li>
<li>those who enter academia distinguish themselves with brilliant research, Nobel prizes, or best-selling books</li>
<li>those who enter community service roles become thought leaders and change agents</li>
<li>those who enter music become sought-after classical soloists or Grammy-winning popular artists</li>
<li>those who enter business become Fortune 500 CEOs or entrepreneurial superstars</li>
</ul>
<p>I could go on, but won't belabor the point. A university that could pull this off would establish its reputation for another century, and would have (by virtue of the success of its alumni) unparalleled ability to raise funds.</p>
<p>Of course, no university can predict the future. But, I'd submit, this kind of thought process and guessing IS an implicit part of the admissions process at selective schools. They are less concerned that a particular admit will graduate with a 3.2 or 3.7 GPA and more concerned about the long-term potential of the student after graduation.</p>
<p>Holistic admissions enables the schools to recruit the student who exhibits the arrogance and drive to ultimately win a Nobel prize by motivating a team of academically brilliant postdocs and grad students to work faster than their rivals. (Of course, since the future is unknowable, that arrogant and driven HS senior could turn out to just be another jerk.)</p>
<p>If I were a college, I'd try to reverse-engineer these categories. I'd look at, say, the U.S. Senate, and see how many of the sitting senators (or perhaps just those who entered college in the last three or four decades) would have been admitted based on GPA and SATs, and whether there were other characteristics that might have singled them out as high-potential leaders. Then I'd do the same for scientists at the top of their field, those at the top echelons of business and entrepreneurship, and so on. Likely, if common characteristics were found, they would differ by field of endeavor. Or, perhaps some might be common to diverse fields as indicators of leadership or motivation.</p>
<p>I'd then use these criteria as one way to select from the pool of applicants who met the basic academic standards for admission.</p>
<p>I don't know if any schools have actually done that kind of research, but I do think the objective of admitting future high-achievers in real life (vs. those with high academic accomplishment in their past) is one reason why we'll never see purely numbers-based admission at the most selective schools.</p>