Holistic Admissions in the Health Professions: Strategies for Leaders 1

In order to provide high-quality care to rapidly diversifying patient populations, health care professionals must be educated in environments that value diversity, and they must possess the background, qualities, and skills needed to address complex health needs. To address the need for evidence, Urban Universities for HEALTH,2 with support from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the National Institutes of Health, conducted a large-scale, national study on admissions in the health professions that included not only medical and dental schools but also schools of pharmacy, nursing, and public health. Examples of holistic review practices that schools are using and that other institutions might consider include: * Developing a mission statement for admissions that includes diversity; * Providing admissions committees with training related to the school's mission, including diversity; * Including non-academic as well as academic criteria such as GPA and test scores in the initial screening process; * Balancing the weight of non-academic and academic criteria during the initial screening process; * Adding essay questions to the admission application that address the school's mission and goals, including diversity; * Evaluating additional criteria related to the school's mission and goals (e.g., global health, research mission); and * Selecting students from a waitlist on the basis of characteristics related to the school's mission or goals. Non-academic criteria include: * First-generation student status; * Socioeconomic status; * Race or ethnicity;3 * Foreign language ability; * Gender; * Experience with disadvantaged populations; * Origin in a community that is a health professions...