New application initiative reinforces Oklahoma State University's commitment to land-grant mission; focuses on leadership, creativity, service

Thursday, June 23, 2011

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klahoma State University has launched a new initiative that enhances the undergraduate application process by emphasizing leadership, creativity and service.

The project, titled Panorama, is a collaboration of the OSU Office of Admissions and Provost Dr. Robert Sternberg, who has collaborated on similar, successful programs at Yale University and Tufts University.  

"The projects at Yale and Tufts demonstrated that it is possible to assess leadership skills in new ways that traditional college applications generally miss," Sternberg said. "The Panorama initiative was motivated in part by OSU’s commitment to its land-grant mission, which focuses on educational access through service, instruction, and scholarship."

Applicants for undergraduate admission will be asked to respond to questions designed to measure creative, analytical, practical, and wisdom-based skills that are not currently directly measured by traditional college-entrance requirements such as GPA and standardized test scores.  

"The idea is that leaders who make a positive, meaningful, and enduring difference to the world are creative in generating a vision for their leadership, analytical in ensuring that the vision is a good one, practical in implementing the vision and in persuading others of its value, and wise as well as ethical in ensuring that the vision helps to attain a common good," Sternberg said.

Responses to the application questions will be evaluated based on these four leadership skills and used, in addition to high-school GPA and standardized test scores, to evaluate students for admission and select scholarships.  

"In addition to broadening the measurements in which college applicants are evaluated, Panorama aims to engage students in the college application process in a manner other institutions generally have not," said Kyle Wray, associate vice president of OSU enrollment management and marketing.

"The nature of the questions will allow students more broadly to reveal who they are and how they intend to make the world a better place in which to live," Wray said. "In changing the nature of the questions, OSU hopes to attract students who demonstrate active citizenship and exemplify leadership qualities."

Through academic instruction and a rich campus experience, OSU students develop leadership skills that will guide them throughout their lives and careers.  The new questions will be included on the updated admission application to be released this fall.