Admissions officers at the University of Washington read every one of the more than 16,500 freshman applications that the university received this year, in an effort to employ a “holistic” approach like those used at many elite private colleges, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported today. The university has scrapped the policy of making most admissions decisions with a grid based on grades and test scores; now other details, such as family income and high-school curricula, are factored in.

The move followed the 1998 passage of a statewide ballot measure banning affirmative action (The Chronicle, November 4, 1998) and the 2003 Supreme Court rulings limiting the use of affirmative action in admissions (The Chronicle, July 4, 2003). The ballot measure prevents the consideration of race even in a holistic system, and the justices explicitly rejected the use of mechanistic approaches, such as grids, to grant preferences based on group memberships, but many colleges have shifted to holistic approaches like Washington’s as a response to the Supreme Court’s decisions.