Holistic Admissions: Strategies for Increasing Student Diversity in Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, and...

To meet the healthcare needs of diverse populations, universities must implement strategies to recruit health professions students who are racially, ethnically, and culturally similar to the communities they serve. One strategy to increase diversity in the health professions is to implement a holistic admissions process. Inspired by the successful use of holistic admission practices in the College of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and physician assistant studies programs implemented holistic reviews in their admissions processes. Although each program developed a different strategy, all were successful in increasing the percentage of diverse students in their respective programs. This paper describes the holistic admissions practices and outcomes and other lessons learned in the effort to achieve our goal of greater student diversity. These lessons included the need to increase the total number of applicants using centralized application services, develop mentoring programs to assist applicants with navigating the requirements for our programs and the admissions process, and provide more scholarship opportunities.