In June 2023 UCLA’s Graduate Council voted to amend UCLA’s Guidelines for the Graduate Admissions Process and Codifications of the Policies and Procedures Governing Graduate Admissions to include language recommending the use of rubrics in graduate admissions.

The guidelines had stipulated that: “Each department, departmental unit, or interdepartmental program shall have written descriptions of its standards and procedures for admissions to each of its graduate degree programs.” The Division of Graduate Education (DGE) at UCLA, charged with ensuring that programs adhere to Graduate Council’s policies, had found in the course of its work advising programs that many were not in compliance with this rule. DGE had, in addition, since 2022 been developing training resources to promote and support a campus-wide shift towards more holistic practices in graduate admissions.

Holistic processes involve the systematic examination of multiple types and sources of information about applicants. Student’s achievements are then considered in the context of what has been possible for them, with no one element of the file allowed to outweigh another. A key element of holistic admissions, therefore, is an admissions rubric, a flexible, customizable tool that systematizes evaluation, contextualizes all elements of a file, and mitigates bias. It can also serve as a “written description” of a graduate program’s “standards and procedures for admissions.”

UCLA’s DGE alerted Graduate Council that many departments did not have the required “written descriptions” on file and proposed that Graduate Council grant DGE the authority to collect and track “written descriptions” to better assist programs. In addition, they suggested Graduate Council recommend the descriptions take the form of a rubric.

DGE proposed, and Graduate Council approved, adding the following sentence to the Standards and Procedures: “Departments, departmental units, and interdepartmental programs are encouraged to outline their standards in the form of a rubric – to be used by each evaluator with each applicant – that clearly articulates the qualities of a successful applicant, where evaluators seek evidence of those qualities, and how those qualities are ranked.”

DGE is also now responsible for collecting and maintaining these records and for supporting programs – through live and asynchronous trainings, consultations, and providing relevant research to faculty – as they develop rubrics.