"Perpetuate and Legitimize": Holistic Admissions and Unequal College Access

• In Event: Race, Merit, and Equity in College Admissions

Abstract

The use of strictly traditional academic factors, such as standardized test scores, in college admissions has been criticized as reinforcing inequality in access to selective colleges and universities. In response, colleges have increasingly promoted the use of holistic criteria to evaluate the whole applicant, considering a diverse set of factors pertaining to experience, background, and performance. However, factors commonly associated with holistic admissions may reflect economic and racial privilege in similar ways standardized test scores do. Our findings indicate that holistic review—which we define as the consideration of non-academic and environmental factors in the admissions process—does little to move the needle when it comes to enrollment by underrepresented racial minority and low-income students. 

Authors

• Kelly Ochs Rosinger, The Pennsylvania State University

• Karly Ford, The Pennsylvania State University

• Junghee Choi, University of Oklahoma