Indiana's Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology seems to be moving away from the typical admissions essay and more towards a personality test.
According to the Lafayette Journal and Courier, the school's chief of enrollment, Jim Goecker, said confidence is more important than penmanship. And personality tests are the more effective way to gauge confidence than an essay is.
"We're beginning to see it tells us more about success in college, which to me is more important than which book I'd take to a desert island and why," Goecker told the LJC. "It's time for us to objectively take a step back, and say, 'Is this really the best we can do?'"
College admissions traditionally come down to looking at an applicant's transcript, or whatever other quantifiable data a school can dig up. As a result, students are given a "yes," "no" or "waitlist." However Rose-Hulman wants to come up with a new way to get to the decision.
The school is calling its currently in development psychology tool "the locus of control," a sure-fire way for applicants to express who they really are.
Rose-Hulman's personality test will not be anything out of the ordinary, the LJC reported, and will offer a series of statements and ask the applicant to what degree they agree or disagree with the statement. The test will tell the school which applicants are Type A and which are Type B, which applicants are leaders and which are followers and so forth. Goecker indicated that Rose-Hulman wants applicants to have leadership traits.
"They see themselves as being able to control the outside world," he said. "It's really about taking advantage of opportunities.
"We need self-starters... We need an entrepreneurial mindset. Well, that's a curious mindset. It goes well beyond what we want in the classroom."
