Columbia University will screen prospective students for ‘civility’
Students are discussing Israelis and Palestinians and other issues, then assessing each other’s behavior — for college admissions
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators at a protest outside Columbia University, in Manhattan, April 18, 2024. Photo by Luke Tress
By Hannah Feuer August 14, 2025
Since Oct. 7, college campuses have become flashpoints for unrest over the war in Gaza, with Columbia University front and center.
Now, admissions officers at six universities — including Columbia — are using a new tool to assess how prospective students might navigate this increasingly charged campus political climate.
Schoolhouse Dialogues, hosted on the nonprofit tutoring platform Schoolhouse founded by Sal Khan, pairs high schoolers with opposing viewpoints to discuss controversial issues one-on-one and give feedback on each other’s civility. A handful of schools will use that feedback, dubbed “civility transcripts,” in admissions.
The participating schools — several of which are engaged in high-profile disputes with the Trump administration over alleged campus antisemitism — say they are seeking applicants willing to engage in respectful civil discourse across political divides.
“I don’t want brittle students,” Jim Nondorf, dean of admissions at the University of Chicago, one of the schools using Schoolhouse Dialogues, told Education Week. “I want students who can come here and add to the conversation on campus, but do it in the right way.”
How Schoolhouse Dialogues work
Schoolhouse Dialogues is an online platform where students ages 14 to 18 have discussions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, abortion, immigration, religious identity and other hot-button issues. High schoolers are matched with students who hold opposing viewpoints and answer ice breakers and discussion questions on the subject they’ve chosen to discuss.
For example, during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict dialogue — a topic which accounts for about 2% of discussions on the platform — students agree or disagree with the statement, “My country’s government should play a more active role in mediating the Israel-Palestine conflict.”
Students then answer discussion questions such as “Have you discussed the Israel-Palestine conflict with others before? How did it go?” and “Does your religious or cultural background influence your views on this conflict?”
After the discussion, students fill out a mandatory feedback form, where they answer questions including “How did this conversation help you learn and grow?” and “What did you most appreciate about how your partner participated in the conversation?”
‘A nice person listens’
Six schools — Columbia University, Colby College, Johns Hopkins University, University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and Washington University in St. Louis — are allowing students to optionally submit Schoolhouse Dialogues portfolios as part of their application for the upcoming admissions cycle.
Neither recordings nor transcripts of conversations are sent to admissions officers. Instead, students who choose to submit will send colleges their “dialogues portfolio,” which shows how many sessions the student has attended, what topics they discussed, their self-reflections, and the feedback they received from other students.
Students can request edits to their portfolio to improve spelling and grammar, remove mentions of their political viewpoints, and remove specific quotes. The portfolio only includes positive feedback, with the idea that participating is “not punitive,” Khan told the Forward.
It’s “no coincidence,” Khan said, that the program’s rollout is during a tense time on college campuses, where some students are struggling to disagree in civil ways.
“The motivation for us and for the admissions officers is actually to create more space for ideological diversity, which hasn’t been happening on university campuses,” Khan said.
Jessica Marinaccio, Columbia’s dean of undergraduate admissions, said during a panel on civil discourse in college hosted by Khan that the admissions team considers a simple but telling question when reviewing applicants: “Are they a nice person?”
“Because a nice person listens,” Marinaccio said. “Schoolhouse Dialogues will allow us [to have] another piece of information in order to effectively understand those qualities in a deeper way.”
Not every institution has embraced the use of Dialogues in admissions. Both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Vanderbilt ultimately decided not to continue after initial trials — with Vanderbilt stating it withdrew from the program “after careful consideration and hearing some concerns.”
Can you fake ‘civility’?
The college admissions process has become more complicated for many Jewish students post-Oct. 7, as concerns about antisemitism and campus political climates become part of their decisionmaking.
Denise Kanrich, director of college counseling at Golda Och Academy, a Jewish day school in New Jersey, said she’s seen a notable uptick in students applying to schools in the South — where pro-Israel students may feel more confident that the administration will crack down on campus protests.
Students also often express anxiety about being openly Jewish in their applications or writing essays about Israel, Kanrich said. But at a Jewish day school with “Golda Och” in its name, it’s not something they can hide.
“I’m not saying this happens, but if they didn’t want to admit you because of your pro-Israel stance, is that a place you want to attend?” she asks her students. “It makes them pause.”
Now, the Schoolhouse Dialogues portfolios add another application component to curate — though Kanrich doesn’t expect admissions officers will weigh peer-to-peer feedback heavily.
Andreas Stamatakis, founder of the admissions consulting company Ivy League Roadmap, worries the dialogues could become a popularity contest, rewarding students who moderate their opinions and penalizing those with more heterodox views.
“You’re exposing these kids to a situation where every social pressure is saying, ‘Put a mask on. Say the thing your friends are most likely to agree with. Say the thing that will get you the most popularity points,’” Stamatakis said. “And if you’re worried about that in college essays, this is like 100 times that.”
And in a college process that already advantages students with polished resumes and access to private tutors, Jodi Rosenshein Atkin, another college admissions consultant, worries the dialogues could widen the divide.
“It seems like it could quickly become a practiced or pre-packaged set of responses,” she said. “And my goodness, these 17-year-olds are already being squished into molds of who they think people want them to be.”
Khan pushed back on those concerns. In reviewing sample videos of the dialogues, he said he hasn’t seen students watering down their opinions. Schoolhouse is also analyzing data to ensure students’ political views don’t correlate with how much praise they receive from peers, Khan said.
As for students who simply fake civility?
“We’ve asked, ‘What if a student is obnoxious, but they pretend to be civil on this platform?’” Khan said. “And we said, ‘You know what? Even that is good in the most cynical world — because at least they’re learning what constructive looks like.’”
