http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/education/edlife/01admission-t.html
Holistic Admissions Sounds... Peaceful.
The New York Times recently posted a great write-up on the difficulties facing students in applying to universities that used to be content in addressing students in terms of their numbers, but that due to rising demand have shifted to analyzing them holistically. Of course this can be good or bad depending on your point of view, but either way, it demands that students stand out a bit more with their writing.
A holistic approach means universities are using your 'intangibles' to differentiate you from other students more than they used to - and this applies even to some of the bigger schools, as the NYT makes clear here with their California State system example.
So what do we make of this? Especially given yesterday's post about the ever-increasing amount of writing that students are expected to do, how do we also account for these intangible assessments? The answer is to make sure that your writing is as strong as it can possibly be, and that means not over-extending yourself when it comes to answering the myriad questions these schools are going to throw at you. Stay focused and clear and you've done your best.
Give that NYT article above a good read. It's a three page piece with a lot of very good details to demystify the process a bit more for you.