Holistic Admissions 2/4/25

This is a phrase that comes up a lot during the college admissions process. Holistic admissions basically means that the college will review your application in totality in order to make their decision. So, if one section is somehow lacking, other sections can more than make up for it and you can be admitted. 

Every year schools say they get thousands of excellent applications and can only admit so many. This admissions season Michigan said that of their early action pool, 20,000 applicants had a 4.0 gpa. An admissions dean at Duke recently said on a podcast that every year they deny tens of thousands of students who could be successful at his school. 

Does it come down to holistic admissions? Is there something on these students’ applications that admissions officers can’t balance?

Probably not. 

First off, schools will always look at your transcript first and that may disqualify you right off the bat. Maybe you forgot to put down the reason why your grades slipped in the spring of sophomore year. Whatever they deem to be not up to their standards for success at their institution could easily be put in a deny pile.

Most importantly, there’s another reason you’re probably getting deferred from early decision/action or denied by an ambiguous thing called “institutional priorities.” Before every admissions cycle, the admissions officers for a school will get together to get their marching rules that include things like we need 3 tuba players, an outside lineman, more full pay students from the southwest, etc. Also, we have 140 employees’ kids applying. And don’t forget those big donors’ kids! So those needs, depending on the size of the school, could be pretty large. 

So, what I am saying is that the number of students who are admitted holistically may not be the majority. Also, to note, if your child does not get in from this smaller pool, it may not just be the gpa nor the SAT/ACT that held them back. Please remember that there are many parts to an application aside from these two metrics. There are essays, honors lists, and activity lists that may just appeal more to your admissions officer. 

Whether or not your application is reviewed holistically is not up to you. There’s no guarantee that the admissions committee will even see it either. I would ask that you take this in consideration when you see other applicants getting in that seem inferior. They tried just as hard and won that lottery. Time to find another school that appreciates you.