Fit and Grit: Rethinking How Colleges Define and Pursue Excellence

This week, we’re reexamining old assumptions about merit and fit in higher education admissions with Emily Chase Coleman, co-founder and CEO of HAI Analytics, a company that helps colleges and universities use data to navigate challenges such as shrinking applicant pools, shifts in broader demographic trends, and rising costs. Learn how schools are rethinking what matters (beyond test scores and grades) and using new, data-driven methods to clarify institutional goals and support more equitable education outcomes. Emily draws on more than two decades of higher education leadership experience and holds a PhD in Social Psychology and Statistics from Cornell, which she brings to the challenge of bridging the gap between data science and institutional strategy. Join us for a reflection on the limits of traditional admissions approaches and the potential of predictive modeling, AI, and human judgment to reshape how colleges define and pursue student success.