SchoolJoy Dimensions: The Most Powerful Portrait of the Whole Student

College admissions is a highly complex and multifaceted process that involves a holistic review of a student's achievements, abilities, and potential for success. While high school GPA and standardized test scores like the SAT are important factors in the admissions decision, colleges also evaluate a range of other factors, including extracurricular activities, leadership experience, community service, essays, and recommendations. According to a recent lawsuit against Harvard College, the admissions process at highly selective schools is designed to "evaluate the whole person," taking into account factors such as "character, personality, background, life experience, [and] future potential" (Korn & Belkin, 2018). This means that colleges consider a range of qualitative and quantitative factors when making admissions decisions, and that GPA and test scores are just one part of a much larger picture.

However, the current student systems and college & career readiness platforms primarily rely on GPA and SAT for the quantitative measures that correlate to postsecondary success. According to research by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), high school GPA is the most important factor in college admissions decisions, followed by the rigor of the student's high school curriculum. In fact, the correlation between high school GPA and college success is well-established, with studies showing that high school GPA is a better predictor of college success than standardized test scores like the SAT (NACAC, 2018).

Despite the importance of holistic admissions, high schools are limited in their ability to prepare students for the competitive college admissions process because they only have visibility into one of the several factors colleges consider: the GPA. What about leadership, community service, empathy, and creativity? Can schools systematically track these attributes right now?

SchoolJoy Dimensions provides schools with a comprehensive portrait of the whole student, tracking any skill, any competency, within any framework. Dimensions allows students to showcase their full range of skills and competencies beyond GPA and SAT scores, giving them a more complete picture of their strengths and areas for growth.

SchoolJoy accomplishes this by tracking the number of hours students accrue in various areas, such as community service, leadership, and creative pursuits. This data is highly reliable because it only documents information that has been verified by an adult. By using a reliable, objective measure of student achievement, SchoolJoy helps colleges evaluate the whole student and make more informed admissions decisions. More importantly, Dimensions is aligned with the holistic review process of college admissions, which values factors like leadership, community service, empathy, and creativity, enabling schools to formally recognize students for attributes that are important for college and career goals.

References:

Korn, M., & Belkin, D. (2018, October 12). Behind Harvard's Discrimination Trial. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-harvards-discrimination-trial-1539372001

National Association for College Admission Counseling. (2018). State of College Admission Report. https://www.nacacnet.org/globalassets/documents/publications/research/2018-state-of-college-admission.pdf

‍

Click here to schedule a demo to learn more.