Workshop explores benefits of holistic admissions

Liz White, lead learning and engagement specialist for the Association of American Medical Colleges’ Advancing Holistic Review Initiative, said she often asks officials at academic medical centers to list the most important attributes they want to see in a potential student.

Then she asks for a list of attributes that are crucial in actual health providers and practitioners.

The overlap, she said, is “not much.”

So, is there a better way to choose health sciences students who, rather than simply being the most impressive applicants, also are the people you most want to see in those jobs down the road?

That’s one of many questions asked at a recent Holistic Admissions Workshop hosted by the College of Allied Health Professions. Amy Addams, director of the AAMC’s competency-based admissions initiative, and Leila Diaz, assistant dean of admissions at Texas A&M Health Science Center, teamed with White to conduct the workshop. Representatives from the colleges of public health and nursing, as well as academic affairs, took part.

“Holistic” admissions would look at the whole person — and whole mission of the admitting institution — beyond previously traditionally held metrics such as standardized test scores, grades, etc.

Admission by different processes likely would produce different student bodies than we see now. But, “This is not simply about improving the compositional diversity of our student body — as crucially important as we believe that to be,” said Kyle Meyer, Ph.D., dean of the CAHP. “It is about preparing a more diverse workforce, and doing so in a way that enhances the learning experience for all students.”

Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D., who endorsed the workshop and spoke to its attendees, said UNMC must produce a health care delivery workforce to serve some of the highest health care status populations in the country — but also some of the most poverty-stricken and most rural.

Dele Davies, M.D., vice chancellor for academic affairs, agreed: “Holistic admissions helps UNMC tie our admissions to our mission, ensuring we are meeting our organizational goals and the needs of the stakeholders and communities we have pledged to serve.”

Joseph Norman, Ph.D., director of physical therapy education, said the possibilities presented by the workshop included a new way of looking at how to best serve Nebraska and Nebraskans.

“This is an opportunity to really be deliberate in following our mission,” Dr. Norman said.