Across the United States, higher education institutions increasingly employ a holistic review of prospective students’ application materials. In a holistic review process, admissions offices consider a student’s personal and academic context when reviewing applications for admission. A key feature of a holistic review is a student’s application essay, or personal statement. However, admissions offices rarely standardize their essay review process and very little research exists regarding whether student essays predict successful outcomes in college. This paper summarizes a quality improvement study conducted within the University of Vermont Admissions Office. It examines the extent to which non-cognitive student characteristics present in student admissions essays (e.g., grit, creativity, intrinsic motivation, leadership, community engagement, cultural fluency) are correlated with pre-admission factors and subsequent college outcomes. The study involved developing a new essay scoring rubric and evaluating the usefulness of this rubric by scoring 320 undergraduate admission essays. Findings suggest that the rubric is useful in identifying evidence of non-cognitive factors in student essays, but that overall scores do not strongly correlate with pre-admissions characteristics or first-fall college GPA. The study supports the practice of holistic review and provides insight into how admissions offices can begin to operationalize the review of essays and non-cognitive factors in their admissions processes.

abstract: Employee turnover is a pervasive issue across industries and at all levels of an organization. Lost productivity, hiring, interviewing, training and increased workloads are costs associated with turnover. As an undergraduate admissions professional charged with the enrollment of new freshmen students, I am constantly assessing the health of my team and working to minimize turnover in admission counselor positions. I implemented a six-week mentoring program in my office to increase second-year employee satisfaction, motivation, development and retention at the Arizona State University Undergraduate Admissions Office. Post intervention data were collected through the use of focus groups and self reflection questionnaires. Results show that mentoring is a mutually beneficial experience for mentees and mentors. Mentees reported benefits from the personalized dissemination of information and institutional knowledge by their mentors. Mentors reported that being in a mentoring relationship made them feel their opinions and experiences were valued. Mentoring can be an inexpensive professional development program designed to assist entry-level employees. While attrition cannot be totally eliminated from a workplace setting the study participants reported that the mentoring program made them feel valued even while acknowledging that there are limited opportunities for advancement within the office. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Higher and Postsecondary Education 2012