I know that most schools will say that they utilize a holistic admissions process...

[LuluLovesMe]

...but what does that really mean? The decision to accept or reject is a binary one whereas applicants come with a spectrum of strengths in different areas.

At some point don't all these intangible values have to be weighed relative to eachother so that the applicant's strength can be quantified and he can be placed in either the accept or reject category?

If so, how is each factor weighted?

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[Meh.meh]

...but what does that really mean? The decision to accept or reject is a binary one whereas applicants come with a spectrum of strengths in different areas.

At some point don't all these intangible values have to be weighed relative to eachother so that the applicant can be quantified to be placed in either the accept or reject category?

If so, how is each factor weighted?

As an aside, a spectrum doesn't mean there can't be an arbitrary assignment. Light is a spectrum. I can filter out wavelengths greater than a given nm amount.

In all seriousness, I think it varies by institution. Ours described it by saying they first seperated us into groups (accept, waitlist, reject) in each set of interviews, then sorted through the waitlist. I imagine some people are very easy to sort, and others are difficult (take more qualitative decision making).

 

[Jabbed]

That's the thing, when they review your application the decision is decidedly non-binary. There's "definitely yes" for the rockstars or special fits, "definitely no" for the people who probably shouldn't have bothered applying, and the "mehh.. how many more of these do we have to read?" for most everyone in between. If your numbers pass a certain threshold and you have all the right boxes ticked you're basically entered into a pool of 'potential students'. This is tantamount to meeting a kind-of-cute girl/guy/whatever at the bar; you're kind of into it and you definitely wouldn't hate yourself when you wake up in the morning, but at the same time it's only 10:00 so there's no need to rush off until you can be sure that there isn't a better hottie out there whose interested in you.

So you get to wait around for a few months until the med school has scoped out the rest of the bar and realized that they probably couldn't do much better than you after all. The kick is of course that you'll still be super grateful come morning even though it's pretty obvious that you weren't their first pick.

And that's what holistic review is in a nutshell.

 

[owlegrad]

Moved to appropriate forum.

Also, I like Jabbed's explanation.

 

[Goro]

it means that if your stats are over the stated minimums, then eyeballs look at your entire app.

Different schools and reviewers will give different weights. In the end, they balance out.

Look at LizzyM's sage response in the "Admissions made less mysterious" thread.

...but what does that really mean? The decision to accept or reject is a binary one whereas applicants come with a spectrum of strengths in different areas.

At some point don't all these intangible values have to be weighed relative to eachother so that the applicant's strength can be quantified and he can be placed in either the accept or reject category?

If so, how is each factor weighted?

 

[gyngyn]

Read all about it:
https://www.aamc.org/initiatives/holisticreview/