PRODUCT INFORMATION

Applications Quest has been designed to provide the greatest flexibility to our clients enabling them to manage the ever increasing number of applications and to build diversity. Applications Quest provides a way to do holistic evaluation of applications that is effective, objective and reproducible, allowing an organization to effectively and productively manage the capacity issues faced while remaining committed to diversity.

Applications Quest is a software application that solves an increasingly difficult problem for institutions. That is how to make admissions, scholarship and placement decisions fairly and equitably in an environment that is becoming increasingly more competitive while maintaining a commitment to diversity. Additionally, there is a need to manage this issue in line with legislative and Supreme Court guidelines.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics in the year 2006-07 there were 3,931 two and four year institutions with a total of 6,512,000 applications submitted for the freshman class. In addition to the freshman class, applications for the graduate and professional schools will be added to these numbers and are currently being researched. (i.e. 558,053 Medical School Applications in 2008) There are also a large number of additional admissions and selection activities at most universities covering various academic programs and scholarships. For example, one institution received more than 15,000 applications for 2500 slots.

It is important to note that the recommended applicants represent those whose diversity (differences) are not determined solely on the basis of any single factor such as race/ethnicity. Choosing a single application from each group therefore ensures the diversity of the recommended application pool in a manner that excludes race/ethnicity as the determining factor in admissions (such that one race is given preference over another), but which still allows race/ethnicity to be one of many factors contributing to the diversity of the recommended application pool.

Applications Quest will build a diverse group of recommended applications based on patent pending software that makes the decision objective, reproducible, defendable and holistic.

Applying the methodology used by Applications Quest creates measurable, consistent gains in diversity. In one case study involving the graduate psychology program at a major research university, the pool of applications recommended by Applications Quest showed a 12% gain in diversity compared to the accepted application pool identified through the university's regular evaluation methods; this gain in diversity was realized in a manner which not only ensured all recommended applications met the university's minimum requirements, but that the use of racial preference was precluded as a possibility.