From grit to growth mindset: Defining character traits in admissions
College admissions is sometimes noted for its ambiguity. Participants and onlookers alike marvel at what secret ingredient guarantees admission to selective institutions, looking for meaning under the umbrella of “holistic review.” Ironically, one challenge may not be a lack of information, but a lack of consistency in how some admission officers share–and receive–information.
Colleges communicate their school’s values to prospective students through school visits, information sessions, and marketing campaigns. Applicants, in turn, strive to communicate their own unique qualities to colleges via their personal statements, course selections, and extracurricular activities. Educators offer recommendations meant to highlight the students’ character strengths, both in and out of the classroom. And ultimately, admission officers read these applications, briefly summarize the applicants’ personal qualities, and pass these along to colleagues and committees within their own office.
With so much written communication moving into, out of, and around admission offices, there is often little time to expand upon vocabulary. Buzzwords like grit, resiliency, and motivation (among others) help admission officers quickly convey the essence of the student. And yet, if there is no discussion or agreement on how these characteristics are defined or identified within the application, there is ample room for miscommunication. This can lead to applicants failing to effectively communicate their assets, or worse, admission officers failing to discern them. In the absence of clear definitions, bias can infiltrate the admission process as individuals rely on their own assumptions of what these terms mean and look like.
Though admission officers may operate with positive intent, it is easy for miscommunication to further inequity within the admission process. If one reader, for example, understands grit to look like a student persevering in a rigorous curriculum, they may fail to also recognize grit in a student who only is undertaking a modest curriculum, but is simultaneously overcoming substantial life obstacles. The systematic differences in how admission readers might understand these ‘buzzwords’ turn admissions from being merely a subjective process to an inequitable one.
So what can admission leaders do about it?
As an admission office, it is crucial to robustly define the non-cognitive and character traits that you wish to review in applicants. Taking this preemptive measure helps to ensure that applicants are being reviewed for those traits consistently and equitably. It also creates space for your team to cultivate a shared understanding of which personal qualities matter most to your institution, and what they look like in practice. The better your office can communicate these qualities to prospective students and counselors, the more likely you can attract an applicant pool that aligns with your college’s mission.
“Buzzwords like grit, resiliency, and motivation (among others) help admission officers quickly convey the essence of the student. And yet, if there is no discussion or agreement on how these characteristics are defined or identified within the application, there is ample room for miscommunication.”
Samantha Wettje, in collaboration with Making Caring Common, offers a helpful resource on how to develop thorough definitions of non-cognitive terms and skills in the admission process.
You’ll first want to consider which characteristics are most salient to your institution. Conducting a Thrivers Study may help you identify these key qualities. While it’s important to select an inclusive set of characteristics, it’s also worth being intentional in your selection, going for depth over breadth. You don’t want to select so many characteristics that they lose significance or are impossible to reliably review in your process.
Once you know what your priority traits are, you’ll want to write simple yet meaningful definitions that can be easily understood by everyone in your office. These definitions should be anchored by research, not personal beliefs or assumptions. It’s also critical to add a brief description, or rationale, for why this skill is valued at your institution. Consider what benefits and outcomes research suggests are associated with this trait, and what outcomes you hope for it to engender in your student body. For example, you may value perspective-taking because you hope to create a campus community that appreciates and engages in debate from multiple perspectives. Understanding why a trait is valued underscores the intentionality of your selection, and keeps these terms from being perfunctory.
Most importantly, you’ll want to provide your team with clear examples of how to locate evidence of these qualities within the application. In other words, what does it mean to be demonstrating leadership? While extracurricular involvements listed within the application might be a natural place to look for evidence of leadership, it’s important to not be too prescriptive. Students with significant family responsibilities, for example, may not demonstrate leadership in traditional venues such as athletics or student government. They may, however, be the primary English speaker in their family and facilitate paying bills, translating documents, and scheduling appointments. Evidence of leadership, in this case, may not be reflected in a resume or in an extracurricular list but in an essay or counselor recommendation letter. It’s incumbent that admission teams have the training to equitably recognize and lift up the evidence when students are embodying their school’s values, even as it is demonstrated in disparate ways.
Being explicit about what constitutes evidence of these characteristics helps mitigate bias by keeping admission readers from overextending their inferences. In conducting this exercise, you may find that your application does not create space for students to showcase the qualities most compelling to you. If this is the case, consider ways that you can invite applicants in to showcase these qualities through supplemental essay prompts, interviews, or even peer letters of recommendation.
“Being explicit about what constitutes evidence of these characteristics helps mitigate bias by keeping admission readers from overextending their inferences.”
Finally, consider brushing up on the literature. While terms like motivation, self-regulation, or leadership are a regular part of our vernacular, there is a significant body of research informing what we know to be true about these characteristics. The science provides valuable insight in understanding how these qualities are cultivated in individuals and the implications they carry for future success. As grade inflation and test optional policies increase the attention paid to personal qualities in the application, it’s important that personal qualities do not become synonymous with ‘gut feelings’ but instead are appreciated based on the objective definitions, available research, and accurate measurement.
Posted by Julius DiLorenzo, College Admission Program Coordinator
