Evaluation
Grading a multiple choice test is easy. Evaluating a multi-faceted and highly individualized project or product is hard. Here is why you should take on this challenge and suggestions for how.
The "Why"
While evaluating deeper learning skills in college application takes more effort and time than grading test scores, we believe that your challenge will compensate for two different reasons.
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Firstly, many Asian countries are or will face aging society in the near future and universities are or will be facing shortage of high school applicants. Even universities that are ranked academically highest now may have to advance waitlisted applicants which will cause other universities to have a stable number of freshmen at the beginning of the school term. Before this reality occurs, universities should be branded for different characteristics besides academic ranks--and helping your students grow their deeper learning skills not limited to academic mastery is a great reputation to start with!
Secondly, you will be able to recruit more students motivated to study at YOUR university by implementing these processes. Z-Gen has more information in their hands than we assume, and they consider whether the university is dedicated to growing their deeper learning skills or not. Colleges who have implemented these processes have already claimed that students study harder during their university years when they set a particular goal in mind in the application process. We believe the increased time and care your admissions office will have to dedicate to evaluating these supplemental assessments is a small price to pay for the much more comprehensive, valuable, and relevant picture you will get of your applicants.
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The final good news: this task is already being done! Many U.S. universities already have "holistic" applications, which include personal essays, letters of recommendation, and information about extracurricular activities and leadership positions in addition to grades and test scores. You can visit the "College Applications in the U.S." section of our resources page for more information. Similar application processes have been on-going in Japan starting from private universities and the key for managing the operation is to have both the admission office and the faculty involved in building the process. Building the application process together to decide on their ideal students essentially helps create the vision and the culture of the university as a whole.
The "How"
Qualitative Approach
Applicants can be assigned an admissions officer, who will be in charge of handling their application materials. Admissions officers can write a short summary describing how the applicant approached the task, integrated with relevant quotes from the material itself. This summary can then be discussed with a larger committee of admissions officers.
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Applications can also be evaluated and summarized by multiple admissions officers, especially in the beginning stages. These accounts could then be compared, and multiple iterations of this cycle will likely lead to more standardized ways of representing applicants' submissions.
Beyond the beginning phases, applications could also be randomly "spot-checked" (summaries can be compared with the original, submitted material for accuracy and fairness of representation) to ensure that the established standard is maintained.
Quantitative Approach
A set of metrics that are particularly important to your university can be decided on, and a scale could be created to assess these qualities in the submissions.
The first few sets of applications could be scored by multiple admissions officers. These admissions officers could then defend and discuss the scores they assigned and come to an agreement on the fairest score. Multiple iterations of this process will likely lead to largely standard scoring across admissions officers, as they develop an intuition for evaluating materials against the chosen criteria.
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Beyond the beginning phases, applications could also be randomly "spot-checked" (original, submitted material can be evaluated by a more senior admissions officer for accuracy and fairness of scoring) to ensure that the established standard is maintained.