Education: New Ways into College

College applications once consisted of a high school transcript, board scores and perhaps a why-I-want-to-go-to-your-school essay. No more. The college acceptances being sent through the mails last week-were based, in a good number of cases, on such evidence as a handmade jacket of chain mail, an original eight-page score for a string quartet or a taped rendition of César Franck's Piece Heroique.

Art schools and progressive colleges like Bennington have appraised applicants' artifacts for years, but only lately has the practice reached other liberal arts colleges. Bowdoin in Maine and Hampshire in Massachusetts first invited examples of creative work three years...

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