As the largest capstone AP school in Canada, Appleby College offers students in grades 7 through 12 access to an abundance of opportunities that align with Appleby’s spirit of innovation, inclusivity, and ambition, and shared values of respect, responsibility, integrity, and compassion.
"We offer a well-rounded education with a strong emphasis on co-curricular activities," shared Rudianne Grigson, Admissions Officer at Appleby College. "From arts and sports to service and global education, our programs are designed to develop versatile individuals."
“Every year, we have more than a dozen global education opportunities for students that allow them to travel to different cities and countries around the world, each with a different subject focus,” she explained. “If they go to Indonesia, they’ll focus on sustainability in the environment. If they choose Iceland, the focus is on climate change. For Germany, the focus is on language and culture. There’s always a fantastic learning experience waiting for each of our students.”
“Admission to Appleby College is quite competitive,” Grigson continued. “To ensure that we’re enrolling the students who will take full advantage of the opportunities we offer, we ask families to complete a multi-step admissions process. They fill out the online application, submit report cards and a confidential teacher reference, and complete an in-person or Zoom interview. Then the last piece is the Asynchronous Assessment in Kira Talent.”
Creating a scalable process for a growing pool of students
“We were first introduced to Kira at the EMA annual conference,” explained Grigson. “After seeing the success that other schools were having with the platform, we began exploring how Kira could help us adapt to the challenges we were facing in our own admissions process.”
"In 2022, we had a 40% increase in applications," she continued.
“Kira allowed us to handle the increased volume without compromising the quality of our assessments."
“When we’re torn between two students with stellar applications, Kira gives us that extra depth of insight that we previously didn’t have access to,” Grigson explained.
“Kira helps us differentiate between strong applicants.”
“Being able to pull up the recorded Kira responses and watch it together as an admissions committee helps us reach a final decision faster and with greater confidence,” she added.
Getting a full picture of applicant ability
"Kira allows you to customize the assessment to really focus on whatever factor you’re looking to assess," shared Grigson. “We evaluate students’ traits and soft skills, such as resilience, engagement, and respect, as well as their hard skills, such as language, and academic aptitude.”
“We don't have a formal ESL program at Appleby, so students need an intermediate to advanced level of English,” she explained. “For our applicants whose first language is not English, we require a standard English proficiency test, and then Kira gives us another opportunity to get an informal assessment of their confidence in and command of the language.”
“We want to ensure that students have the set of skills necessary to flourish in our rigorous AP curriculum, while participating in the experiential trips and various language programs,” Grigson explained.
“Having that extra layer of analysis from Kira is invaluable in making those determinations.”
With Kira’s built-in integrity metrics, Appleby can ensure that they’re making those decisions based on a fair and accurate representation of the students’ abilities. By flagging any non-standard applicant behaviors within the platform, from typing speeds to browser refreshes, Kira automatically alerts reviewers so they can take a closer look.
“Academic integrity is a high priority for our team, especially as we scale our admissions process,” Grigson shared.
“Kira helps us do our due diligence and reinforces the defensibility of our decision-making process.”
"Kira’s integrity flags alerted us to some activity that we would have never caught before,” she added.
Delivering and receiving an exceptional experience
With an applicant experience score of 4.6/5, earning a rating of ‘Exceptional’, Appleby’s applicants were keen to share their positive experiences in completing the assessment.
“We’ve received really positive feedback from our applicants,” Grigson shared.
“Kira creates such a wonderful touch point with students and their families, which helps us ensure that we’re maintaining a high level of care and personalization even as we scale the enrollment process.”
“The support from Kira behind the scenes is a big part of that,” she continued. “The Kira team is so responsive and friendly. When our team went to Kira with any questions or requests, they were quick to help us make whatever changes we needed.”
“Having a team that’s always on hand and willing to teach you makes the whole process feel effortless,” Grigson added.
At Kira Talent, we believe that technology should assist applicants throughout the admissions process, not impede them. That’s why we’ve designed our platform to comply with WCAG 2.1 standards for accessibility.
Understanding WCAG Guidelines
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are a set of standards established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to ensure that web content is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. These guidelines provide specific criteria to enhance the usability of digital content, allowing individuals with visual, auditory, motor, or cognitive impairments to navigate, comprehend, and interact with websites effectively. By adhering to these guidelines, organizations can create a more inclusive online experience, promoting equal access and participation for everyone.
WCAG 2.1 are designed to make online content more accessible to individuals with a wide range of disabilities, including:
Why this matters
Creating an accessible admissions process is vital for promoting a diverse and inclusive educational environment. As colleges and universities aim to attract talented individuals from all backgrounds, it is essential that applicants with special needs or abilities can navigate the admissions process without barriers.
With Kira's WCAG 2.1 compliance, schools using an Asynchronous Assessment or Live Interview can benefit from Kira's robust video technology, competency-based rubrics, and seamless administrative controls—all while being fully accessible.
What's next for accessibility at Kira?
Platform accessibility is a long-term focus at Kira, and this WCAG 2.1 certification is the latest step in that journey. We're regularly evaluating and improving our practices, actively soliciting feedback from users, and staying up-to-date with the latest accessibility standards.
If you would like to learn more about accessibility at Kira Talent, please connect with us.
This quarter at Kira Talent, we didn’t just enhance our Review Platform, we revolutionized the way you manage, evaluate, and integrate your review process.
Updates and new features:
Master your workflow - every tool at your disposal
Scoring a mountain of assessments can seem daunting, but Kira’s all-in-one Review Platform makes it painless.
The Review Platform streamlines applicant evaluation, providing tools for efficient and effective assessment. Reviewers can easily watch and score applicant responses, access essential documents, track progress, and view performance metrics, all within an intuitive dashboard. With all these tools at your disposal, your team can refocus their energy where it matters most — selecting the best-fitting candidates for your program.
Track your reviewing progress with visual indicators that give a quick snapshot of your workload. At the top of the dashboard, reviewers can see a breakdown of assigned applicants, completed reviews, remaining tasks, and an estimated completion time.
Keep key information at your fingertips with Kira’s intuitive dashboard layout. Sort and filter through all your assigned applicants to find exactly what you’re looking for, or use the Recently Visited tab to quickly jump in where you left off.
See everything on one screen with side-by-side layouts for videos, rubrics, and uploaded documents so reviewers can effortlessly evaluate applicants while they watch their responses.
Focus on the content, not the grammar with an optional integrated spelling and grammar feature that scans written submissions and flags any errors.
Learn more about Kira’s innovative Review Platform
Crunching numbers with revamped score calculations
Discover Kira’s revamped score calculation system, designed for richer, more nuanced applicant evaluations.
Leverage the dual calculation method which uses both average competency scores and average of the reviewer scores to ensure a more comprehensive evaluation of each applicant.
Reflect competency weights in score calculations to ensure that scores align with your team’s expectations.
Streamline your enrollment process with Ravenna
Kira’s new integration with Ravenna Admit ® makes it easy for K-12 private and independent schools to organize their enrollment process.
Effortlessly invite applicants or applicant families to complete their Kira assessment right from their Ravenna HUB application.
Receive real-time updates when Kira assessments are completed and access the Kira review link from within the Ravenna Admit® portal. When reviewers finish scoring a response, scores will automatically appear in Ravenna, so you can monitor applicant progress and share results with your enrollment committee, all in one place.
Part of the state’s flagship university, the University of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy (OU Pharmacy) provides a comprehensive learning environment with unique opportunities.
“Being part of an academic health sciences center we have a lot of different opportunities for students to take advantage of,” shared Jennifer L. Richardson, Director of Recruitment & Admissions. “From ambulatory care to operating the only poison control center in Oklahoma, we give our students a plethora of options for hands-on learning experiences.”
“We’re the only school in the US that has a fully operational nuclear pharmacy,” she continued. “All these opportunities help expose students to all the different career paths that they’ll have at their fingertips.”
Like many American pharmacy programs, OU Pharmacy uses PharmCAS to collect applications. In 2020, they integrated Kira Talent into their PharmCAS application to help identify applicants who are not only academically qualified but also demonstrate the resilience and dedication necessary to thrive and take full advantage of the opportunities within their program.
Boosting enrollment with a more engaging admissions process
"Every applicant has the opportunity to complete the online writing assessment in Kira as part of their PharmCAS application,” Richardson explained.
The timed-writing assessment delivered through Kira’s Asynchronous Assessment reflects OU Pharmacy’s previous application process but has allowed them to streamline and enhance the experience for both their reviewers and applicants. After the initial file review, successful applicants are invited to a Live Interview.
“Anytime we look to incorporate new technology into our admission process, we think about the applicant experience first,” Richardson shared. “If this is going to be one of their first interactions with our school, we want to make sure we’re putting our best foot forward. We consider what the applicant's experience is going to look like, how easy it will be to use, what happens if they run into technical issues, and so on."
“Since we started using Kira Talent, both for online writing assessment and for our live interviewing, the feedback from applicants has been so over the top positive.”
“Efficiency and effectiveness are our top priorities,” she continued. “The sooner you can get a decision out to applicants, the more opportunities you have to let them feel like a part of your community so they want to matriculate the following August,” explained Richardson.
"We are looking at a 25% increase in enrolled students this year, and Kira Talent is definitely a contributing factor to that."
Learn how Kira helped UNC Pharmacy achieve an interview-to-offer turnaround time of one week.
Seeing the full scope of every applicant
“There's a common misconception in admissions that if you have a final interview you already have a holistic admissions process,” Richardson shared. “But some programs use GPA or test score cutoffs to decide which applicants receive an invitation to interview, which means they may still be excluding students based on test scores.”
“What I learned over my 18 plus years working in education is that there are a lot of students who have amazing backgrounds who will be wonderful practitioners but just had a lot of other obstacles or challenges that they had to overcome,” she continued. “They might not have an impressive GPA but they show resilience, persistence, and impressive time management skills. It's those intangible factors that make them a strong student.”
“I started working on a way to change the hearts and minds of faculty who were used to test scores,” Richardson shared, “by finding new ways to measure things like resilience or persistence.”
“When I found Kira I realized that this was exactly the missing piece we were looking for in our process.”
“This is such a high-stakes process. It's so important to the applicants because this is their dream and you don't want them to have a negative experience going through it,” Richardson explained.
Creating a partnership of innovation
"One of my favourite things about using Kira for our final interviews is how responsive the support is throughout the process, not only for our admissions team but for our applicants and reviewers,” Richardson shared. “An applicant simply has to open up the chat box, explain what issue they’re facing, and someone from Kira is responding immediately to help them solve it."
"I've worked with several companies and admissions solutions over the years and Kira is hands down the best experience I’ve ever encountered.”
“I’m continuously impressed with the flexibility and adaptability that the platform offers,” Richardson explained.
“Kira can adapt to fit any school’s admissions process, and not just make it work, but make the process even more efficient and more effective.”
“It's so unique to have a team of people willing to match your ideas and flesh them out with you,” she continued. “It's a true partnership."
For over 100 years, the D'Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University has established a reputation for its pioneering approach to business education — combining experiential learning with an entrepreneurial spirit. From co-ops and corporate residencies to global field studies and managing a slice of the university’s endowment, their commitment to providing hands-on, transformative learning opportunities sets them apart from other graduate business schools.
“At Northeastern, we’re inspired by the simple truth that experience deepens learning and discovery like nothing else can,” explained Mary McNamara, Assistant Dean of Graduate Recruitment and Admissions at D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University. “Here, learning is powered by experience.”
“Students apply their classroom knowledge through professional work with start-ups and global corporations, research with faculty, and service with nonprofit organizations” she continued. “They manage the 360 Huntington Fund, a mutual fund in the university’s endowment where students research stocks and make buy/sell decisions. They are founders, joiners, or mentors through IDEA, our student-led venture accelerator, and so much more.”
To identify applicants who will thrive in this dynamic learning community, D'Amore-McKim has taken an innovative approach to holistic review.
“Applications were rising and we were launching new programs. We needed a way to conduct high-quality interviews and identify high-potential applicants without over extending our lean team,” McNamara noted. “Kira Talent’s Asynchronous Assessment and Reviewer Services have helped us accomplish that by enhancing the holistic review process and expanding our bandwidth.”
Elevating holistic review with Reviewer Services
“Kira's Reviewer Services has been a game-changer. It's allowed us to scale effectively while improving quality, freeing our team to focus on tasks where their unique expertise is most valuable.”
McNamara explained the challenges they faced as applications increased: “Interviewing thousands of candidates each cycle became overwhelming. Kira's Reviewer Services solved two problems: Scaling the reviewing process to match growing interest and improving the quality of our analysis. Now, each interview is reviewed by Kira experts specifically trained in D’Amore-McKim’s custom assessments.”
“With Kira’s Reviewer Services, our admissions team efficiently and effectively evaluates thousands of global applicants each cycle, maintaining high standards as we grow.”
Enrolling stronger students with an effective admissions assessment
Since enhancing their full-time MBA program's traditional interviews with Kira's Asynchronous Assessment in 2018, D’Amore-McKim has expanded its use across nine programs, including the MS in Finance, MS in Business Analytics, and MS in Accounting.
Encouraged by the success of adding Kira to its admissions process, McNamara's team explored the relationship between Kira scores and classroom performance. Analyzing a year's academic data from one of their largest programs revealed a notable relationship between Kira assessment performance and classroom success.
“Students with the highest Kira scores had the strongest classroom performance as measured by cumulative GPA.”
While acknowledging that admissions is a holistic process, McNamara finds it affirming to see this correlation.
"As an institution with an entrepreneurial spirit, we're eager to try new ideas and pilot new possibilities,” she explained. “With Kira, we've experienced remarkable success."
Building a valuable assessment for language skills
“With growing international applications, Kira has become invaluable for assessing English language ability,” McNamara shared. “While some applicants submit standardized English proficiency exams, these allow extensive preparation and may not reflect spontaneous communication skills.”
"With Kira, we've created a custom assessment that reflects the business school experience," she explained. "Students respond to our custom prompts thoughtfully and in real-time to questions, just as they would in a case discussion. This gives us a clearer picture of an applicant's language skills and ability to think on their feet, while providing consistently scored results."
“And Kira’s integrity checks complement this new process,” McNamara added. “Kira flags any suspicious activity so we can look closely at an applicant’s submission. It gives us additional peace of mind, particularly with all the tools and resources that today’s applicants have at their disposal.”
Streamlining the admissions process portfolio-wide
"The Kira team is always responsive when we need assistance, technical or otherwise. It's been a fantastic partnership," McNamara noted.
“With Kira, we’re able to direct our team’s talents to the things that we are uniquely qualified to do, such as providing personalized guidance to prospective students.”
“That allows us to deliver an effective process and consistent experience across our portfolio of programs,” she continued, “while improving efficiency and expanding bandwidth.”
"Ultimately, Kira has been instrumental in helping us meet the growing global demand for our programs," McNamara concluded. "We've scaled our admissions process efficiently without compromising on the quality of our applicant evaluation or the personal touch that D'Amore-McKim is known for."
For over 100 years, Menlo School has built a reputation for academic excellence and a commitment to fostering an enriching environment for their students. Nestled in the heart of Silicon Valley, Menlo offers its students a wealth of opportunity from creative arts programs, to athletics, to advanced academic courses.
For Menlo, finding the families who will thrive in this tight knit school community is a critical part of ensuring the next century of success.
“Before the Covid-19 pandemic, we conducted in-person interviews with the applicants and their parents and guardians,” shared Brooke Wilson, the Director of Admissions & Financial Aid at Menlo School. “But in the years since, we’ve seen such an increase in applicant volume that it became impossible to simply pick up where we had left off.”
“It felt like we had less and less time every day but we knew the mission alignment piece was so important for our school,” Wilson continued. “We became very dependent on prepared writing in order to evaluate prospective family values but, as we all know, in admissions, prepared writing isn’t always the best gauge for authenticity and now with the rise of AI even less so.”
“You end up with this sea of sameness where 80% percent of the written statements sound the same, and it contributes significantly to reader fatigue.”
“Families were putting a lot of work into something that wasn’t providing us with much value,” Wilson continued. “We wanted to change that.”
In 2023, Menlo School decided to take a new approach. Transitioning their student and parent interviews into Kira Talent, Menlo is strengthening their applicant yield by uncovering a more authentic view of student and family fit in the enrollment process.
Replacing the prepared writing submission
“An application to Menlo includes the typical recommendations and school records which we collect through Ravenna Admit,” Wilson shared. “Then we have an on campus visit, during which we conduct small group interviews and collect a writing sample.”
“This year we had families complete both a prepared writing assignment and the Asynchronous Assessment in Kira,” she added.
“Going forward, however, we're removing the prepared writing because with all the insights we get from Kira it doesn't serve a purpose anymore.”
“We had the highest yield that we've had in a long time, particularly for ninth grade,” Wilson shared. “It was a weight off my shoulders to confirm that adding this new element, which might have felt unfamiliar to people, had a positive impact.”
“Spontaneity and authenticity are the things that we feel are most important,” Wilson continued. “Being able to feel the kid's energy and see how the family interacts with each other; that’s the direction that we’re moving in with Kira.”
Finding efficiency and equity in a new assessment
“In addition to the efficiency benefits of Kira, we wanted to reduce the potential for bias in the enrollment process and give families more opportunities to shine,” Wilson explained. “We wanted to mitigate that subjectivity of the single interviewer,” she continued. “There's a lot riding on that interview for our candidates and we really wanted to make sure that we had more eyes, opinions, and perspectives on each student.”
“When we were in file review with the enrollment committee, there were many moments where all of the three of us may have had a different interpretation of the same response,” Wilson shared. “With Kira, we could easily pull up the videos together, watch them again, and then have a really in-depth and thoughtful discussion about what we'd seen.”
“Some people might think that having the video element would create more bias in the process, but I found it was actually the opposite,” continued Wilson.
“When you're reading a one-dimensional paper file and you see the student's race or ethnicity, gender identity, family work history or education background, that information could unconsciously play a role in a reader's perception. Seeing the student and their family in their Kira video adds dimension and humanity.”
Emphasizing prospective family values alignment
“We did a lot of front-loading of information in preparation for the Kira assessment,” Wilson shared. “We also offered on-campus days where families with less access could use our computers and our quiet space to complete their Kira assessment.”
“We want to make sure that families feel connected and supported throughout the admissions process,” she explained. “One of the advantages of Kira is the opportunity to reintroduce yourself.”
“Many of our families are applying to several schools, and it’s easy for them to get inundated with information. When they've been to a million campus visits, it all starts to sound the same.”
“The videos built into the Kira experience let families see our faces again and give us a chance to reconnect and reiterate the purpose and intention behind the assessment,” Wilson shared.
“We tell them what we value at Menlo: we value mistakes. We value you being authentic,” Wilson recalled. “We're not giving them the open house or preview day talk all over again, we're telling them how we want them to approach the Kira process and that lines up directly with how we would want them to approach being a student or a family at the school.”
“Kira has helped us to better identify true mission alignment,” she continued. “The proof was in the excitement of our staff and faculty when they met the families at our welcome events this year and told me ‘Gosh, they really get it!’”
Creating a completely custom assessment for students and parents
“The customizations available in Kira made it possible for us to create the experience we wanted for our applicant families,” Wilson shared. “We worked with our teachers to create a bank of questions that were developmentally appropriate for each grade level, and the Kira team helped us build those in the assessment.”
“For the parents’ interview, many of the questions we created were situational,” Wilson shared. “We gave them a short window of prep time to collect their thoughts and then they recorded their response. No pausing, no retakes, just like a real conversation. Kira removes the opportunity for them to deliberate over every word, or to try and say what they think we want them to say. Instead, they told us what they would actually do.”
“You could feel that authenticity through the video.”
“For each response, Kira helped us create defined rubrics that highlighted what we were specifically looking to evaluate, which our reviewers could reference as they were scoring that individual question,” she continued. “It removes the personal interpretation of what’s ‘Good’ or ‘Excellent’. Instead, reviewers are scoring based on where the response fell on the rubric that the team set together.”
Setting a new standard for private and independent enrollment
“My hope is that these kinds of assessments become the new standard,” Wilson shared. “In general, schools and admissions offices tend to be conservative when it comes to change, and many are afraid to experiment with their admissions process.”
“While I agree that there's no reason to change things for the sake of change, it’s important to be open to change when it’s more effective and to know when to let things go.”
“This year we kept the prepared writing because it was scary to let it go,” she continued.
“But bringing Kira into our admissions process was an incredible discovery for us and I believe it’s an important step for the future of private and independent school admissions.”
Ranked in the top five veterinary colleges in the United States, North Carolina (NC) State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) is a driving force for veterinary research and education.
Centered in what's known as The Research Triangle, NC State College of Veterinary Medicine is part of a research conglomerate with two other tier 1 research universities — Duke University and the University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel hill.
“As a student at NC State, you have access to a lot of really amazing research, impressive institutions, and opportunities for connecting with like-minded peers,” shared Adam Jenkins, the Director of Admissions at NC State College of Veterinary Medicine. “We attract professionals that are at the top of the veterinary world to come here and teach our students. The people that you meet here, the experiences you get, are kind of second to none.”
Over ten years ago, NC State CVM dropped the interview component of their admissions process because they didn’t have the resources to deliver them at scale.
“For a long time, we had to go without having any interview component whatsoever,” Jenkins explained. “But we felt like we were missing the communication aspect, an important piece of identifying the best candidates for our program.”
“With Kira, we found a way to reclaim that piece of our admissions process at scale.”
On-demand assessments for greater efficiency
“While there may be pros to in-person interviews, the reality is that the logistics of actually doing it well are significant,” shared Jenkins. “We felt that we’d be trying to squeeze it in and the finagling we’d have to do would end up impairing the integrity of the process while failing to deliver the level of professionalism that we want applicants to associate with NC State CVM.”
“The efficiency and flexibility of Kira’s Asynchronous Assessment allows us to create a stronger, more diverse reviewing team because it’s more accessible to our faculty, staff, and practicing DVMs who don’t have hours to set aside for in-person interview days,” Jenkins shared.
“With Kira, they can review candidates without it interfering with their work.”
“The same benefits hold true for our applicants,” he continued. “We have yet to encounter a scenario where technology is a barrier for anyone. If anything, we’ve found that it creates a more level playing field.”
Achieving reviewing consistency
“The larger and more diverse group of people you’re able to include in the reviewing process, the more confident you can be that unconscious biases aren’t influencing the admissions decisions,” Jenkins explained.
Using Kira’s Horizontal Review, NC State College of Veterinary Medicine is able to assign reviewers to a specific competency which they assess across a wide pool of applicants. In doing so, Horizontal Review helps improve accuracy and reliability of scoring as each applicant is evaluated by more reviewers who are better versed in assessing that specific competency.
“We have three reviewers score each response, which means that there are nine different people assessing each applicant,” shared Jenkins.
“When we see outliers, we might take another look, but we know that one review can’t sink the boat,” he continued. “That’s really important when you’re including a varied group of reviewers in your reviewing process — the diversity of backgrounds and experiences is very beneficial, but these are not all professional reviewers, you have to make sure you have the right structures in place.”
“When all the scores align, however, we can feel very confident that we’ve gotten an accurate read on that applicant.”
“Once the Kira assessments are reviewed, the scores and notes are passed along to our admissions committee, who complete a full holistic file review, and make our final admissions decisions,” Jenkins added.
Tracking reviewer integrity and consistency
“Kira’s Inter-rater Reliability Metrics flag any significant deviations in scoring and allow us to easily see when there’s an outlier,” explained Jenkins. “However with all the additional support, like the defined rubrics and clear competency descriptions that we created in Kira, it wasn’t often that we needed the tools.”
“There was a lot of consistency amongst a wide group of reviewers who did not communicate and had no idea who was reviewing what,” Jenkins continued. “Around 85% of reviewer scores were within three points of each other.”
“That showed us that, with our process in Kira, we are getting an accurate evaluation of the applicant and their skillset.”
Kira Talent’s Review Platform makes sorting through a sea of applicants feel like smooth sailing.
Give your reviewers the tools to evaluate applicants efficiently and effectively. With Kira’s Review Platform, your reviewers can watch and score applicant responses, access key documents, monitor their progress and see performance metrics, and more, all in one intuitive dashboard that allows them to focus their energy where it matters most — identifying the best applicants for your program.
Discover how Kira’s all-in-one Review Platform can help make your reviewing process better.
4 features for a powerful reviewing platform
- Progress tracking and performance metrics
- Intuitive information management
- Side-by-side applicant responses, rubrics, and scoring
- Built-in spelling and grammar checks
1. Progress tracking and performance metrics
Set your reviewers up for success with a powerful dashboard that helps them monitor their progress.
Keep track of remaining and completed reviews with visual progress indicators that provide a quick snapshot of a reviewer's progress through their assigned workload. At the top of their dashboard, reviewers see a breakdown of their assigned applicants, how many they’ve already scored, and how many they still have to complete, as well as an estimate of how long it will take them to finish reviewing the remaining applicants.
Check weekly performance metrics to see a breakdown of how many applicants, video responses, and written responses were reviewed that week.
2. Intuitive information management
Everything your reviewers need, at their fingertips. The Kira Review Platform brings all the tools and information they need to complete timely and comprehensive reviews all in one place.
Get a bird’s eye view of assigned applicants as Kira’s Review Platform organizes all of your assigned applicants across multiple assessments, all in one place. Then, use the intuitive sorting and filtering tools to find what you need, when you need it.
Sort applicants by selecting between various sorting options including first/last name, assignment name/date, or review status to let you quickly sort through and find what you need.
Keep organized with review status tagging which will automatically update your applicants from ‘Unreviewed’ to ‘In Review’ to ‘Reviewed’ as you submit your scores.
Filter for key information to find what you’re looking for by selecting one of the many data points such as assigned competency, review status, or date assigned.
Get helpful tips and info in the resources tab. In this section you can find quick tips to mitigate bias, best practices, and other resources about reviewing applicants in Kira.
Jump back into a previous session with the Recently Visited tab, which allows reviewers to quickly pick up where they left off.
3. Side-by-side responses, rubrics, and scoring
With applicant responses, defined rubrics, scoring, and notes all thoughtfully laid out on one screen, Kira’s Review platform keeps everything you need to conduct an efficient and fair review at your fingertips.
See everything on one screen with Kira’s side-by-side video and rubric layout that allows reviewers to seamlessly score applicants as they watch their response. The module cleanly expands to show detailed rubric definitions to help reviewers evaluate more accurately and consistently.
Keep competencies top of mind by keeping the question and related competency definition on screen as reviewers assess applicants.
Easily access applicants' uploaded documents, such as an essay, resume, or signed form, in their original formatting and score them using the same side-by-side rubric layout as the video and written responses.
4. Built-in spelling and grammar checks
Keep your reviewers focused on the important content and let Kira check the grammar. An optional feature on the Review Platform, Kira can highlight spelling and grammatical errors in written submissions, as well as show the current and maximum word count for the assigned response.
For over 60 years, the Florida Atlantic University (FAU) College of Business has built a reputation of excellence and innovation in business education. Over the decades, the FAU College of Business has continually adapted to the changing landscape of business education, integrating cutting-edge technology and forward-thinking practices into its curriculum to become one of the leading business schools in the Southeastern United States.
Where most executive business programs allow candidates to earn a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA), FAU is one of only five executive PhD programs in the U.S. The program caters to senior professionals with decades of experience in business who are looking to build out their research and analytic skills and apply them in business..
“In our traditional PhD program, we're generating scholars. In our executive PhD program, we are fine-tuning executives” explained Marc Wharton, PhD Programs Coordinator at the FAU College of Business.
Evaluating this niche applicant pool for admissions came with some unique challenges. Where most business programs were using the GMAT or GRE to assess program readiness, FAU found that the test simply didn’t work for their applicant pool.
“We’re working with professionals who haven't been in a classroom or taken an exam in years. They aren’t in that mindset and that often meant that they were getting very low scores.”
“On top of that, it was proving to be a barrier for many of our ideal applicants,” he continued. “We’d be recruiting a 50-year-old Chief Operating Officer with a very impressive resume and we’d ask him to go take a test on business fundamentals. More often than not, those candidates just walk away and go to another program.”
“That’s when we took a deeper look at our admissions process and asked ourselves what we're looking to learn with that test score,” Wharton shared. “What we found was that we were trying to confirm that the candidate had the quantitative skills to be proficient in the statistical analyses they'd be required to do as doctoral students and we realized that we could get a better assessment of those skills with an Asynchronous Assessment in Kira Talent.”
Creating a custom assessment for working professionals
“When we started building out the assessment with Kira, and I saw how intelligently the questions were crafted and how they targeted our desired competencies, I was 100% sold,” Wharton shared.
“As well as being more effective at honing in on those important skills, Kira has allowed us to make our admissions process much more efficient,” he continued. "Among others, the PhD committee is composed of six faculty members. Trying to align their schedules with the applicants’ and coordinate committee interviews was extremely difficult."
“I opened up the very first assessment, watched the candidate’s response, and realized that I had learned more about that person in the two-minute video than I typically learned in a half-hour interview.”
“This is the best interview experience I’ve been involved in,” Wharton added. "Hours of work used to go into the coordination of interview days. The Asynchronous Assessment has allowed us to reinvest that time elsewhere in our recruiting process.”
Learn how McCombs School of Business increased yield while reducing time spent on interviews by 30%
Expert advice for an elevated assessment
“With Kira, we've discovered a way of assessing executives that is highly effective,” Wharton shared.
“I'm on several interview committees and what we’ve created with Kira is more sophisticated and more professional than any other method I’ve experienced.”
“There's a level of expertise in creating these questions that your average admissions team just doesn't have,” he added.“I've never had an interviewer ask a question with as many layers and that required as much reflection and consideration as what we’re now asking in Kira.”
“The culture at Kira is so aligned with the culture at the College of Business, which makes the entire partnership feel seamless,” explained Wharton. "The team at Kira is so responsive, whether I had a quick question or request or needed to hop on a call, they’re quick to provide support however they can,” he continued. “It gives me that extra peace of mind, knowing that we’re not doing this alone.”
“I would describe myself as a futurist,” added Wharton. “I’m always wanting to innovate and improve on our processes.”
“That’s what Kira is for our admissions process — a modern solution that reflects the future of higher education.”