Admission to selective colleges has grown more competitive, yielding student bodies that are unrepresentative of the U.S. population. Admission officers report using sorting (e.g., GPA, standardized tests) and concertedly cultivated (e.g., extracurricular activities) and ascriptive status (e.g., whether an applicant identifies as a member of a…

The college admissions process teaches students how to express themselves during interviews, how to describe their best qualities in application essays. It may also make them wary of college marketing campaigns, and skeptical of being treated as a statistics, due to the large role played by standardized-test scores and grade-point averages. Such…

SCALES FOR PREDICTING 1ST-YEAR COLLEGE GRADES AND EXTRACURRICULAR ACHIEVEMENT WERE DEVELOPED BY ITEM ANALYSIS FROM EACH OF FOUR ITEM POOLS--THE CALIFORNIA PSYCHOLOGICAL INVENTORY (CPI), THE VOCATIONAL PREFERENCE INVENTORY (VPI), AN ADJECTIVE CHECK LIST (ACL), AND AN EXPERIMENTAL OBJECTIVE BEHAVIOR INVENTORY (OBI)--USING A SAMPLE OF 1,013 NATIONAL…

Adding two more rounds to six-round debate tournaments does not significantly affect the selection of winners of such contests. (CH)

Although competition at top colleges may be stiff, there are ways to improve the chances of admission, including: careful high school course and extracurricular activity selection to highlight academic, creative, leadership, initiative, and maturity characteristics; application and interview approaches; college choice; and timing. (MSE)