The Educational Testing Service wanted to help graduate school applicants prove they are more than a set of test scores. So it developed a tool to rate students across a broad sweep of traits -- creativity, teamwork, integrity -- that admission tests don't measure.
The Personal Potential Index, unveiled this week, looks suspiciously like another set of scores. An applicant's personality is distilled into six traits, and the applicant is rated on each of them by various professors and former supervisors on a scale of 1 to 5.
Officials with the nonprofit organization, based in Princeton, N.J., say the index marks the first large-scale attempt to codify the elusive, subjective attributes that make up a successful grad student. The goal is to raise the share of students who finish graduate school. Non-cognitive, or "soft," skills are considered crucial to success in higher education.
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