The Educational Testing Service has developed a new tool to rate graduate school applicants, the Washington Post reports. Teamwork, knowledge and creativity, and ethics and integrity are three of the six areas measured in the new test that EDS is calling The Personal Potential Index. Professors and supervisors log onto a website then judge the applicant’s personality on a scale of 1 to 5. Responses are converted into numerical scores, and then averaged. An overall rating is also given. Other traits assessed include communication skills, resilience, and planning and organization. Company representatives said that this test is the first wide-ranging effort to record and classify the subjective attributes of successful graduate students, and that the goal is to increase graduation numbers. Many believe noncognitive, or “soft,” skills are key factors for successful learners. “If it’s a program that requires a lot of creativity, then it’s important to have somebody who has a lot of creativity,” said Debra W. Stewart, president of the Council of Graduate Schools in the District of Columbia. The article states that, in theory, graduate admission offices could categorize applicants using these scores, similar to the way GRE results are used now. “As this becomes much more prevalent, and we think this will happen very quickly, faculty will get used to answering these 24 questions very regularly,” said David Payne, chief operating officer for college and graduate programs. The index is offered for free to those taking the GRE.