Holistic review is widely practiced in graduate admissions. However, despite its prevalence, there is a need to understand how practitioners approach holistic graduate admissions, how its practice relates to institutional priorities, and its potential implications for equitable access to graduate education. This exploratory mixed method study captures the perspectives of graduate enrollment management (GEM) professionals on the (a) consideration of applicants' personal attributes for evaluating their potential for graduate degree completion, and (b) alignment between applicants' personal attributes with strategic institutional priorities. Applicants' professionalism and integrity were reported most important when evaluating applicants' potential for graduate degree completion. Applicants' multicultural competency was reported most important for the institutional priority of increasing graduate student diversity. Participants' overarching perception of holistic review was that it provides important flexibility during the application evaluation process. Implications for practice are discussed including the need for institutions to (a) make the consideration of applicants' personal attributes transparent to applicants by defining the attributes and aligning required application materials to these attributes and (b) create internal methodologies to ensure reliable and consistent evaluation of applications.