Advancing Equitable Admissions Policies: Insights from the Implementation of Rubrics in Graduate Admissions

• In Event: Rethinking Admissions Policies: Access, Equity, and Student Success

Abstract

Rubrics have gained traction in graduate admissions as part of a broader shift toward holistic review, particularly as programs seek out approaches that reduce bias while remaining legally compliant in a race-neutral policy environment. Despite their growing popularity and endorsement as a best practice, little is known about how rubrics are implemented across the highly decentralized and heterogeneous landscape of higher education. This gap raises crucial policy questions about whether rubrics are effective tools for improving equitable, consistent, and transparent admissions decision-making. This study therefore examines how graduate faculty and administrators across disciplines and institutional contexts navigate the implementation of rubrics and the barriers they encounter.
We draw on qualitative interview data from 34 faculty and administrators involved in graduate admissions across a diverse set of programs. These programs varied by size, structure, and discipline. Using an inductive coding approach, we examine how participants describe and make sense of rubric use in their local contexts. We also apply symbolic interactionism and micropolitical perspectives in the interpretive phase of our analysis to understand how faculty construct the meaning and utility of rubrics and how organizational dynamics shape their implementation.
Preliminary findings suggest that the utility of rubrics is not uniform, but is context-dependent and socially constructed. First, faculty describe rubrics as useful for addressing specific challenges in graduate admissions, particularly mitigating bias, improving consistency, and managing workload in high-volume review contexts. At the same time, the perceived value of rubrics varies, with some faculty questioning whether they meaningfully improve decision-making relative to existing practices. Second, rubric use and implementation vary substantially across program contexts. Differences in program size, subfield structure, and whether admissions decisions are centralized or faculty-driven shape how rubrics are interpreted, adapted, or used inconsistently in practice. Rather than being used in a uniform way, rubrics are often adapted by faculty to fit their specific program context. Third, implementation is often constrained by limited organizational infrastructure, including a lack of training, clear examples, and institutional support. As a result, rubric use is frequently informal and uneven, relying on local leadership and individual initiative rather than coordinated policy implementation. Across these themes, faculty autonomy and variation in program values and culture complicate efforts to standardize rubric use across institutions.
Importantly, these findings highlight the limits of treating rubrics as a technical “fix” for admissions reform. For policymakers and institutional leaders seeking to democratize graduate admissions, the study underscores the importance of attending to local context, faculty meaning-making, and implementation capacity when promoting rubric-based approaches in admissions review. Beyond graduate admissions, these findings suggest that efforts to implement structured decision-making tools in decentralized policy contexts, such as hiring and performance evaluation, must account for how tools are interpreted, adapted, and supported in practice. More broadly, effective policy design must move beyond mandating tools to supporting the conditions under which they can be meaningfully and consistently used.

Authors

• Michael Grigsby, University of Southern California
  Presenting Author

• Julie R Posselt, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Co-Author