Despite their lack of visibility, more than 7 million students in the United States are enrolled in rural school districts--about 15 percent of all public school students. Almost half of those rural students hover near or below the poverty line, and not all of them are white. More than 25 percent are children of color, according to a report by the…

Racial and ethnic student body diversity is essential for medical schools to serve their educational mission of addressing racial and ethnic health inequities in the United States. Yet bans on the practice of affirmative action in six states have led to declines in students of color enrolled in medical schools. In this article, we examine prior…

One of the most critical functions on campus is enrollment management. As budgets become tighter and institutions rely more heavily on tuition, the competition to "make the class" intensifies. How can institutional research help inform strategic planning in such a market? This paper will discuss the way that institutional researchers can…

Career choice theory traditionally defines career selection as a choice, not a competition; however, desirable limited-access majors often have selective admission processes. For transfer students who come from open-access community colleges, the competition can be an unanticipated obstacle. In this qualitative study, we found that among transfer…

What are the benefits and costs of attending a selective public research university instead of a less-selective university or college? This study examines the 2001-2011 Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC) program, which guaranteed University of California admission to students in the top four percent of California high school classes. Employing…

We investigated how high school mathematics course placement contributes to inequalities in college preparation for students categorized as "English Learners" (ELs), especially "long-term" English Learners (LTELs). We devised a base-2 enumeration approach that allowed us to process complex transcript data from one school…

One key objective of English medium instruction (EMI) programs in non-Anglophone countries is to improve students' English skills in both academic and professional environments. Despite the high cost and the popularity of the program policy, there remains a lack of empirical studies on the link between attending an EMI program and students'…

Using data from two Toronto student cohorts that entered high school five years apart, this study uses descriptive and multivariate techniques to examine short-term change in the predictors of four possible pathways after high school: confirming a place in university, confirming a place in college, applying but no admittance, or not applying at…

Students who attend different colleges in the U.S. end up with vastly different economic outcomes. We study the role of relative value-added across colleges within student choice sets in producing these outcome disparities. Linking high school, college, and earnings registries spanning the state of Texas, we identify relative college value-added…

In this study, I examined several ecological factors at play when students make use of test preparation. I first looked at students' usage of test preparation and followed that with an examination of the relationship between family income and test preparation use. Finally, I examined familial support in preparing for admissions exams. Many…

The Top 10% Plan admissions policy has now been in place in Texas for over two decades. We analyze 18 years of post-Top 10% Plan data to look for evidence of increased access to the selective Texas flagship campuses among all Texas high schools. We provide a detailed description of changes in enrollment patterns at the flagship campuses from Texas…

Drawing upon data from an ethnography of college admissions, I describe how the admissions' personnel and faculty mobilize persuasive scripts that invite prospective students to reimagine themselves as subjects with a fluid set of aspirations within the context of risky futures. The focus here is not on the representations of the college itself,…

The low Australian Tertiary Admissions Ranks (ATARs) of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) students are routinely highlighted in the media and in reviews of ITE, with the perception that such students will be unable to become effective teachers. As part of the NSW Government's "Great Teaching, Inspired Learning" (GTIL) Framework, minimum…

This study explored the college access and choice processes of high-achieving African American students who were admitted to University of California (UC) campuses but elected to enroll elsewhere. Employing critical race theory as an interpretive framework, the study found that many of these students were denied access to their priority UC…

In 2016, following a request from the Minister for Education and Training, the Higher Education Standards Panel (HESP, 'the Panel') delivered 14 recommendations to achieve greater transparency in the admissions information for higher education. This report presents the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency's (TEQSA's) summative…