The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) has created the Next Generation of Educator Preparation Accreditation Standards. The new CAEP requirements will influence the admission standards and practices of all educator preparation providers moving to national accreditation. The research described in this article examined…

This paper examines the characteristics of students admitted to Russian universities with different levels of selectivity. First, we argue that students differ not only by the results of the Unified State Exam (USE), the university entrance exam, but by family and school characteristics, and by educational strategies. Next, it is shown that the…

For decades, Scandinavian culture effectively prohibited the development of special provisions for talented students in higher education. However, in recent years, a cultural shift has gradually made more room for excellence and talent development in the national discourses. This paper analyzes the climate for talent development in Denmark,…

The single best predictor of who will be a great teacher next year is who was a great teacher this year. Some great teachers are seasoned veterans, while some are new to the field. Experience matters, of course, particularly in the early years of a teaching career, but it's no guarantee of teacher effectiveness. There is a wide variation in…

The graduate admissions process is crucial for controlling the quality of higher education, yet, rules-of-thumb and domain-specific experiences often dominate evidence-based approaches. The goal of the present study is to dissect the predictive power of undergraduate performance indicators and their aggregates. We analyze 81 variables in 171…

Six years ago, I wrote a composition about the state of indigenous music in the academy with an accompanying research paper. In this work, I attempted to trace the presence of indigenous music in the institution both musically and through an anti-colonial lens. The writing was structured around three musical snapshots entitled Subjugation,…

Aptitude tests should predict student success at the university level. This study examined the predictive validity of the General Aptitude Test (GAT) in Saudi Arabia. Data for 27420 students enrolled at Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University were analyzed. Of these students, 17565 were male students, and 9855 were female students. Multiple…

The nation's most selective colleges are often the centerpiece of the discussion surrounding college choice, and trends in college selectivity are relayed through stories of plunging admission rates at a few high-profile postsecondary institutions and anecdotes of model high school students unable to secure seats at these colleges. Such stories…

This dissertation contains three essays on the economics of education and innovation. In the first essay, I study the effects of increased access to higher education by examining a dramatic 1961 Italian reform that increased university enrollment in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields by more than 200 percent in a few years.…

Since 1998, the Iowa Department of Education's Division of Community Colleges and Workforce Preparation (division) has compiled and published "The Annual Condition of Iowa's Community Colleges," commonly known as the "Condition Report." The intent of this report is to provide clear, objective data about Iowa's community…

In the lead essay of this Forum, one of the questions Jerry Herron asks in discussing honors admissions is "What are we offering?" This question relates directly to the question often posed by well-meaning parents, well-intentioned students, and inquisitive administrators who want to know if honors is just more and/or harder work and…

This chapter discusses the collaboration between a national college access program, the National College Advising Corps (NCAC), and its research and evaluation team at Stanford University. NCAC is currently active in almost four hundred high schools and through the placement of a recent college graduate to serve as a college adviser provides…

This paper uses student-level data to investigate how the college application behavior of underrepresented minorities (URMs) changed in response to the 1998 end of affirmative action in admissions at the University of California (UC). We show that all URMs experienced a drop in their probability of admission to at least one UC campus. However, the…

In recent years there has been a debate over the alleged superiority of achievement tests over aptitude tests on the grounds that the first would be fairer for college admissions and less influenced by family background. The switch from aptitude tests to achievement tests in Chile presented a unique opportunity to examine this claim. Regression…

"Undermatching" refers to college ready students who select and enroll in colleges with selectivity levels significantly lower than their academic profile, resulting in attending a non-competitive college, a two-year college, or foregoing applying to college altogether. The current research trend examining the topic of Undermatching…