In the wake of national health care reform, development of the future health care workforce has become more important than ever. Millions of newly insured patients, many from underserved urban communities, are seeking health care services. In order to provide high-quality care to rapidly diversifying patient populations, health care professionals must be educated in environments that value diversity, and they must possess the background, qualities, and skills needed to address complex health needs. As the primary educators of the health care workforce, colleges and universities are seeking strategies that will help them increase the diversity of their student populations and, by extension, that of future professionals. The admissions process is one component of an overall strategy to achieve these aims, with many of the attributes needed for success. One emergent strategy is "holistic review," a flexible, individualized way of assessing an applicant's experiences, attributes, and academic metrics and how the individual might contribute value as a student and future health professional. Although holistic admissions practices have been adopted by many medical and dental schools, evidence of their use in other professions has been limited. To address the need for evidence, Urban Universities for HEALTH, with support from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the National Institutes of Health, conducted a large-scale, national study on admissions in the health professions that included not only medical and dental schools but also schools of pharmacy, nursing, and public health. The study examined how universities are admitting students into health professions programs and focused particularly on holistic admissions as a strategy for increasing diversity and cultural competence in the workforce, with the larger aim of improving access to care and achieving health equity. The results of the study indicate that diversity has increased at schools that have adopted more elements of a holistic admissions process.