The Supreme Court has held repeatedly that race-based preferences in public university admissions are constitutional. But debates over the wisdom of affirmative action continue. Opponents of these policies argue that preferences are detrimental to minority students--that by placing these students in environments that are too competitive,…

Presented at the conference for USC Center for Enrollment Research, Policy and Practice (CERRP). This provides an overview of the various studies currently underway to establish the validity of noncognitive measures of success as a supplement to current cognitive measures which are used. Comparisons between what is defined as college readiness and…

Although their rate of admission to university appears to be improving, the academic success of former TAFE students depends on the extent to which universities are prepared to meet their need for support in developing academic literacy skills. Australian universities' traditional reliance on schools to deliver students who are academically…

Wake Forest University will no longer require applicants to submit standardized test scores, the university announced last week. The move makes Wake Forest, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, one of the most prominent institutions with a "test optional" admissions policy. The university's decision reveals the increasing complexity of the…

This contribution presents a concise and up-to-date report of doctoral studies in Romania, with a special emphasis on legal and social aspects. The author also argues that in order to be sustainable, the reform of doctoral studies should be substantiated by the differentiation of universities, reliable post-doctoral programmes, and a substantive…

A London-based company with an unusual model for helping colleges recruit international students has generated concern among faculty members as it has begun expanding into the United States. Into University Partnerships has formed joint ventures with five British universities, building centers where foreign students who may not have qualified for…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the evidence on whether grade inflation has led to an increasing emphasis on standardized test scores as a criterion for law school admissions. Design/methodology/approach: Fit probabilistic models to admissions data for American law schools during the mid to late 1990s, a period during which…

Viewbooks are an important medium by which institutions of higher learning entice students to matriculate. Indeed, an entire industry exists to aid institutions in the design and production of these publications and college and university admissions and public relations professionals spend a significant amount of time and money fashioning…

This retrospective interview study investigated the role of parental support in the writing growth of eight first-generation Latino college students in the years prior to admission to a 4-year university. All of the students came from low-income households in urban settings and spoke zero English at the time they entered kindergarten. Participants…

Colleges must manage all types of risks on their campuses every day, and none should be of greater concern than those involving students. With students at the core of their mission, higher-education institutions should minimize any risks related to student safety and satisfaction, and governing boards should establish effective policies to support…

This paper reports a study aimed at developing a substantive theory on the perspectives of Mainland Chinese studying in Singaporean universities. The study was guided by two research questions: (1) Why do university students from Mainland China choose to study in Singapore? and (2) How do Mainland Chinese university students manage the experience…

Erica A. Seldin finished in the top 5 percent of her class at Cherry Creek High School in suburban Denver, while taking a demanding curriculum that included 10 Advanced Placement courses. She received the highest score possible--five--on most of her AP tests. Seldin was also president of the school's Thespian Society, acting in and directing a…

Critics of affirmative action announced last week efforts to get bans on racial and ethnic preferences on the ballots in four states--Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, and Oklahoma--as part of a plan to thrust the issue into the national spotlight in the November 2008 elections. Ward Connerly, the prominent anti-affirmative-action activist who played a…

Marilee Jones's career had been a remarkable success. She joined Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT's) admissions office in 1979, landing a job in Cambridge at a time when boys ruled the sandbox of the admissions profession. Her job was to help MIT recruit more women, who then made up less than one-fifth of the institute's students. She…

Current thinking on validity suggests that educational institutions and individuals should evaluate their uses of test scores in the context of their fundamental goals. Regression coefficients and other traditional criterion-related validity statistics provide relevant information, but often do not, by themselves, address the fundamental reasons…