Direct Admissions policies, first pioneered by Idaho in 2015, aim to simplify the path to college for high school students by proactively admitting students to state colleges and universities. Idaho's decision to implement Direct Admissions was motivated by a desire to boost its relatively low college-going rates and ensure that more of its high…

As organizations committed to providing upward social mobility and leadership development for academically high-achieving working-class youth of color, transitional school programs (TSPs) prepare students to transition from urban public schools to elite, mostly private high schools. However, TSPs' dependence on wealthy, White institutions to…

Intellectual humility, an awareness and ownership of one's intellectual limitations, is argued as a fundamental component of undergraduate education that influences how individuals process new information, remain open to new experiences, and admit the fallibility of their thinking. This study presents a grounded theory analysis of intellectual…

Drawing from focus group interviews with rural students at a highly selective university, this article underscores the importance of the notion that the college transition serves as a key moment of rural consciousness. Bringing together the perspectives of Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory and Schlossberg's transition theory, the findings…

This paper makes a novel contribution to international doctoral education scholarship by offering a detailed examination of pre-application doctoral communications (PADC) between prospective applicants and various university staff members. While PADC is currently an under-considered phenomenon within extant research literature, the paper argues…

This paper uses register data to study how a particular age reward feature affects admission into two highly competitive study programs: medicine and law. The Norwegian admission system to higher education is centralized, and applicants compete in two quotas: one quota almost entirely based on grade point average from upper secondary education and…

This paper considers the COVID-19 pandemic as a test that has disrupted the flow of a particular type of social and physical mobility. It takes pathways embarked upon by students from Asian countries to "prestigious" anglophone universities as its focal point of analysis, considering how the residential, consecratory experience of…

The objective of this study was to understand which factors contribute most to Psychology and Teaching graduates' satisfaction with their university professional formation. Two factors were assessed: the level of admissions selectivity by the university attended, and the salary received once employed. The participants graduated from three…

A pervasive issue in the school choice literature is whether schools of choice cream-skim students by enrolling high-achieving, less challenging, or less costly students. Similarly, schools of choice may "pushout" low-achieving, more challenging, or more costly students. Using longitudinal student-level data from Indiana, we created…

The paper focuses on the contradictory results on the effect of social background on choice of field of study (field stratification) in expanded higher education systems. We predicted that the contradictory results stem from variations in institutional selectivity and curricular policy. Based on two surveys conducted in 1999 (4146 students) and…

This study illuminates the male advantage in test-based admissions to higher education. In contrast to many other countries, admission tests in Germany are optional, and test-free programs are available. This context offers a unique opportunity to investigate whether the male advantage in test-based admissions is caused by gender differences in…

Career services professionals and academic advisors support students as they pursue their goals. Yet, scholars know little about the lived experiences of students placed into alternative degree programs after they fail to secure admission or are rescinded from a selective or regulated professional program such as nursing, teaching, or social work.…

The impact of test-optional college admissions policies depends on whether applicants act strategically in disclosing test scores. We analyze individual applicants' standardized test scores and disclosure behavior to 50 major US colleges for entry in fall 2021, when COVID-19 prompted widespread adoption of test-optional policies. Applicants…

This study sought to understand the student perceptions of parallel academic degree planning for the competitive entry undergraduate Nursing program at a case study university. Parallel degree planning is a relatively new term of alternative curricular planning. The qualitative study includes nine students and their experiences in planning for…

In England and Wales, fee-charging independent schools can be legally classified as charities and, therefore, receive associated benefits, the most obvious being taxation advantages. The high fees charged by many of these schools create financial exclusivity, which, it will be seen, confers significant social and cultural capital to those who can…