This paper explores the way in which elite students from Germany and Romania understand the role of talent, effort, and structural factors in shaping educational success and failure. The image of a successful student aligns with the requirements of the selection processes, with Romanian students emphasising effort, and German students projecting…

Higher education institutions (HEIs) engage more and more in branding activities to sustain an advantage in an increasingly high competitive environment. In such a pressing managerial context, research on brand management in the specific context of higher education expanded over the past few years. While research indicates that brand authenticity…

This study examines the perceptions of university students from inter-ethnic marriage families (hereafter as multicultural students) on their experiences with affirmative action policy. Ten university multicultural students who entered leading universities through affirmative action amidst the highly competitive higher education entrance exams in…

Introduction: In the educational context, emotional and personality factors have been related to students' academic performance and quality of life; however, few studies have studied this relationship in depth in educational contexts where students have a high level of demand and competitiveness, as is the case of the students of the National…

Research has long demonstrated the exclusion and Othering experienced by young people with disabilities in education. This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study conducted in an 'elite' sixth-form college in England, set against the backdrop of a shifting social, political, and cultural landscape, where neo-liberal discourses of…

Historically, the Swedish school system has been designed to level out differences between pupils. There has also been scepticism about assessing pupils. However, new school reforms in Sweden centre on performance and tests. This article focuses on pupils (year 6) in Swedish elite schools and their perceptions of assessment. The pupils are in an…

The emergency of switching to an online learning model due to the COVID pandemic impacted the educational process in of schools world wide. We conducted an anonymous survey at the elite high schools in Serbia whose students won 45 medals at international Olympiads in mathematics, physics, and computer sciences in the last 4-year period…

In this study, it was aimed to explore whether a single-step examination is adequate for ranking the medical graduates for specialty training in medicine which is practically similar to doctoral training (PhD) in other disciplines. For this purpose, a semi- structured interview-based qualitative research was carried out at a university medical…

Discusses the view of education in Russia and college students' attitudes about their futures. Addresses how well prepared high school graduates are to enroll in a higher education institution, the social composition of college students, and the practice of bribes in relation to assessing student preparedness for college. Explores nonstate…

The Undergraduate Medical Programme at McMaster University selects students using a comprehensive set of tools. Attempts to modify the selection process over many years have been impeded by an inability to reconcile very strongly held views among stakeholders as to the importance of the selection tools and, indeed, the very purposes of the…

Discusses the attempt, during China's Cultural Revolution (1968-1976), to sever links between school performance, often dependent on social class, and admission to higher education and resulting upward mobility. Most students then felt it useless to study because success or failure at school work had no bearing on their future. (MH)