WICS: A Model for College and University Admissions

This article outlines shortcomings of currently used university admissions tests and discusses ways in which they could potentially be improved, summarizing two projects designed to enhance college and university admissions. The projects were inspired by the augmented theory of successful intelligence, according to which successful intelligence involves creative, analytical, practical, and wisdom-based skills. In the Rainbow Project, we found that, through our measures, prediction of 1st-year students’ university grade point average was substantially increased over that provided by SAT and high school grade point average; ethnic-group differences, relative to SAT, were simultaneously reduced. In the Kaleidoscope Project, we found that students admitted for the set of expanded skills performed as well as or better than did other students, without the ethnic-group differences typically obtained in such measures. Enhanced prediction of active-citizenship and leadership activities was also demonstrated through these measures.