Kira Release Notes highlight the latest features and recent product improvements so you can stay up to date on what’s new and what's changed in the last quarter.

How do we make holistic admissions more efficient without sacrificing insight?

Each holistic admissions decision requires time, scrutiny, and a variety of data points. But, as we know, admissions teams do not have much time to spare.

This is the inspiration behind our three latest feature updates: Document Review, Question Sequences, and Overall Communication Scores. Each of these features provide a deeper view of applicants within the Kira platform without adding time to the process.

What’s new

 

Document Review

Document Review is a much-anticipated feature that will allow applicants to upload any written documents into the platform to be evaluated by admissions teams in Kira.

Think: Letters of recommendation, resumes, prepared essay questions, research abstracts, transcripts, or letters of intent. Documents will all be evaluated alongside the Kira assessments by multiple reviewers and shown on the Applicant Results page. These documents can be linked to a competency, similar to an existing Kira question.

Applicants can type their responses directly into the platform:

Image of the Supplemental Document Upload

 

Or applicants can upload their documents on the Check In page:

Image of Supplemental Document Upload

 

Admissions teams will now be able to review an applicant’s entire supplemental assessment in one spot, speeding up review time significantly by bringing all materials together to be evaluated on consistent criteria and rubrics.

Furthermore, Kira clients will have the option to pair any of these documents with a Kira question (either video or written) using our next new feature, Question Sequences.

Question Sequences

With Question Sequences schools will be able to link multiple video and written questions to gather more insight on a specific trait or scenario.

Using only an essay or short video, it can be difficult to assess complex competencies like leadership potential, collaboration, or empathy. Question Sequences allows schools to build out multipart questions to get a deeper story on your applicants’ goals or past experiences. Admissions teams can ask connected questions related to a single trait, like leadership, or probe deeper into existing content with follow-up questions.

Image of Question Sequencing in the Kira Product

With this new feature, schools can pair timed video and written assessments, or they ask follow-up questions related to existing non-timed application documents. For example, applicants could upload their resume then answer a timed question on video, such as: “What are you most proud of on your resume?” or “What should we know about you that we won’t see on your resume?”

As you can see, this further simulates an authentic admissions interview and helps unlock additional details on your applicants.

Overall Communications Score

Finally, we’re making assessing applicants’ communication skills more efficient than ever before. Kira users will be able to give applicants Overall Communication Scores, rated separately from their existing competencies.

Historically, ‘communication skills’ would be a competency assessed by one or more video or written responses. Now, reviewers can give a communications rating to applicants after reviewing their responses across all applicant materials including timed responses, as well as uploaded documents, for a truly holistic view of each applicant.

Image of Rubrics

 

What’s changed: Bug Fixes and Enhancements

  • Numeric Kira scores now shown on key screens (Results Page, Cohort Builder)
  • Reviewer Notes are now consolidated on the Applicant Results page
  • Clients can now perform bulk applicant invite by exporting email addresses from their CRM and importing to Kira
  • CSV Export enhanced to include Spelling & Grammar scores and Numeric Kira Scores
  • Clients can now upload create .mov format videos into Kira (popular on Mac)
  • UI improvements to padding/spacing on all Kira pages
  • UI enhancements to the ‘Invite Applicants’ feature