Apples to Oranges: Calculating Rigor Indices of Applicant Feeder Institutions

Optimal analysis for applicants to health science programs includes objective analysis of cognitive, non-cognitive, physical, and communication skills. There is an unspoken understanding that different feeder institutions have different academic standards, thus the comparison between applicants for “high-stakes” decisions for admissions have historically included inherent biases. The need is to create a statistically verifiable method for making these important comparisons without such bias. In an endeavor to optimize the traditional cognitive skills, a machine-learning enhanced analytic was created to determine the relative “rigor” of each feeder institution (U.S. Patent No. 11,010,849). This session explores the implications of its implementation.