This paper considers an unavoidable feature of the school environment, class rank. What are the long run effects of a student's ordinal rank in elementary school? Using administrative data from all public school students in Texas, we show that students with a higher third grade academic rank, conditional on achievement and classroom fixed effects,…

Retention and graduation rates of an entire cohort of 1,913 first-time full-time college students are analyzed. The effects of participation in a first year experience (FYE) course and of entry level academic preparation (ELAP) on retention and graduation are examined, both descriptively and with discrete-time survival analyses. Although…

The University of Texas at Austin administrative data between 1990 and 2003 are used to evaluate claims that students granted automatic admission based on top 10% class rank underperform academically relative to lower ranked students who graduate from highly competitive high schools. Compared with White students ranked at or below the third…

The purpose of this study is to develop a preadmission predictive model of student success for prospective first-time African American college applicants at a predominately White four-year public institution within the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. This model will use two types of variables. They are (a) cognitive variables (i.e.,…

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of high school students to calculate the actual improvement in freshman grade point average, college completion, and total years of schooling from colleges' use of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), Crouse compares predictions based on high school rank to argue that the SAT's costs do not justify…

This brief explores the pros and cons of three alternative approaches to college admissions policies: race-based preferences, which are backed by most Democrats; class-rank plans (admitting the top students in each high school), which is backed by the Bush administration; and economic affirmative action for the disadvantaged of all races, which…

This study examines the default behavior of 5,177 undergraduate student borrowers who attended Texas A&M University--Kingsville (TAMUK) and entered repayment of their TG-guaranteed Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) loans between October 1, 1998 and September 30, 2002 (fiscal years 1999-2002). Using the Department of Education's…