[La-cgs] Follow - up Holistic Review --- LCGS Meeting - April 30 / Agenda

[Carol M Wicks]

Hello,

LSU A&M Graduate School is in a pilot program for holistic review of applicants for graduate degree programs.

The Departments in the pilot program are Communication Disorders, Chemistry, Biological Sciences, Civil Engineering, Petroleum Engineering, MBA, Education, and Architecture.  We had involved programs from across campus and in both STEM and MESH areas.

Our timeline for the pilot is:

*         April 1, 2021: Direction from Departments to Draft Intake Questions and Weights COMPLETED

*         April 15: Graduate School Draft of Questions and Weights Finalized COMPLETED

*         May 15: Departments First Reaction to GS Draft Based on Department-Administered Sample Survey Validation (CURRENT STEP)

*         June 1: Graduate School Final Draft of Questions and Weights

*         June 10: Departmental Approval of Final Questions and Weights

*         June 20: Final Coding Logic for Programming SLATE

*         June 30: SLATE Programmed and Opened for Application

*         July 1: Begin Working With Selected Departments Related to Reviewing Applicant Files, Selecting Applicants, and Evaluating the Admissions Process

The initial list of questions came from me digging through all the Learning Outcomes for all graduate programs across LSU A&M.  (There were more commonalities than I expected, so that was an easier job than I thought that was going to be.)

The Questions and Weights are below. I color coded this in "related questions".  The Departments have already commented on the Questions and we also asked our Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity to look over the questions.  We had a few additions and a couple of changes.  The current list of questions is below.

Questions
Weighting factor
Applicant's ability to communicate knowledge in the discipline in written word
0.5
Applicant's ability to communicate knowledge in the discipline in spoken word
0.5
Applicant's curiosity or creativity about concepts within chosen discipline
0.5
Applicant's ability for independent higher order critical thinking and for discovery of new knowledge
0.5
Applicant's ability to critically analyze literature within the discipline
0.33
Applicant's ability to select and apply appropriate data collection, data analyses, and/or statistical methods
0.33
Applicant's ability to formulate (plan and carry out) an independent research project in the discipline
0.34
Applicant's ability to understand policies and programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion
0.25
Applicant's ability to persevere and see difficult tasks to completion
0.25
Applicant's commitment to professionalism
0.25
Applicant's commitment to life-long learning
0.25
Applicant's  ability to work within a Team to set and to meet project goals
0.5
Does the applicant have a strong background and academic performance in core courses (sometimes this background and performance is reflected by the 'within the major GPA')
0.5
Ability to overcome educational adversity
0.5
Applicant's commitment to community service
0.25
Applicant's leadership ability
0.25


The plan is to ask each Letter Writer to assess the application using the questions and the score (1 to 5 where 5 is excellent).  Then multiply the weighting factor by the score and sum to obtain a potential index. The maximum potential index would 30.  (We will have to average the potential index values as most Departments require three letters of recommendation and some five (average PI) And then divide 'average PI' by 7.5 to convert that average into the more commonly used 4.0 scale.  (See spreadsheet).  We are also asking the letter writers whether they are an academic or a reference from employment and we are asking what the comparison group is (seniors; first-year graduate students; or advanced graduation students).

Right now, the Departments are using the questions and the provided weights and are assessing their CURRENT graduate students as highly successful, successful, doing OK, have some concerns, and struggling.  The Departments are also calculating the students "Potential Index" to see if their qualitative ranking of successful or not aligns with the Potential Index.  The Department can also adjust the weighting factors BUT the weighting factors have to sum to 6, so if they decrease one, then they have to increase another one.

We are thinking about asking each application to self-assess using a similar set of questions and weighting factors.  We will be asking each applicant when they earned (or will earn) their Bachelor's degree to get a sense of how long the application has been out of College to help us consider the needs of working professionals as opposed to the 'fresh out of undergraduate' graduate students.

All of this will be implemented in Slate.

I will keep you informed about how this goes.

Carol M. Wicks

Associate Dean of the Graduate School
Frank W and Patricia Harrison Family Professor in Geology & Geophysics
Louisiana State University
121 David Boyd Hall (Graduate School)
E303 Howe-Russell-Kniffen (Geology & Geophysics)
225-578-2312
gradassocdean at lsu.edu<mailto:gradassocdean at lsu.edu>
cwicks at lsu.edu<mailto:cwicks at lsu.edu>

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