How can college admission leaders assess character more effectively? Our guide — consisting of more than a dozen individual resources — provides valuable guideposts, tools, and fresh ideas for your admission team.
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This document includes action steps that colleges can take right away in character assessment.
This document is intended to serve as a starting point for those admission leaders who are deciding where to begin. Information is offered on how colleges might send signals to students about their values, study attributes and skills of successful and unsuccessful students, build support with university leadership, and more.
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This document offers concrete tips and basic principles for colleges interested in this work. Each tip offers initial guidance and includes links to related guide resources.
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This compendium of select character-related skills/attributes is intended as a starting place for colleges interested in establishing their own definitions of key terms.
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This “how-to” document includes information about the benefits of conducting Thrivers research and concrete tips for colleges considering this work.
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This document is designed as an “audit” to help admission leaders determine their readiness for next steps in character assessment work.
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This document offers examples of colleges that have clearly presented their institutional values on their website and/or have thoughtfully articulated the specific skills and attributes that they seek in applicants.
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This document offers a (de-identified) collection of character assessment-related tools including term/skill definitions, rubrics, and prompts.
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This document is a collection of real colleges’ current character-focused essay questions found in applications. This is designed to inspire new ideas.
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This document offers a collection of real college and application platforms’ language around the importance of applicants’ family contributions/the value of family-based service.
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This document offers early, exploratory ideas on how recommendation forms might be revised to be more equitable to students and more useful to colleges.
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This document suggests innovative and concrete character assessment ideas, tools, and systems that have strong promise in college admissions work.
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This statement was developed in collaboration with admissions leaders and has been endorsed by leaders at more than 350 institutions across the United States. It describes what college admissions offices value and expect—and don't expect—from students during the pandemic.
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We invite college admissions leaders to join their colleagues across the United States in signing the Deans Commitment Letter (2019). The Deans Commitment Letter is a pioneering statement endorsed by more than 140 college admissions deans, which seeks to clear up misconceptions about what admissions offices value in applicants and affirms the value of high school educators, parents, and students shaping curricular and related decisions at the high school level.
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We invite college admissions leaders to join over 200 colleagues across the United States who have endorsed Turning the Tide. Turning the Tide focuses on the following goals in admissions: Developing greater concern for others and the common good among high school students; Increasing equity and access for disadvantaged students; and Reducing excessive achievement pressure. Please note that endorsement indicates that you agree in general with the ideas and recommendations, not that you necessarily agree with and will seek to implement every specific idea and recommendation.
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