Medical school admissions is a contentious and high stakes selection activity. Many assessment approaches are available to support selection; but how are decisions about building, monitoring, and adapting admissions systems made? What shapes the processes and practices that underpin selection decisions? We explore how these decisions are made…

In the 1930s, American colleges and universities began to screen applications using the SAT, a mass-administered, IQ-descended standardized test. The widespread adoption of the test accompanied the development of the world's first mass higher education system--and served to promote the idea that the United States was becoming a…

This research study explored the perceived impact of the campus visit on the college search process and whether specific elements of the campus visit were perceived to have greater or lesser influence on individuals' college choices. The research sought to specifically address the questions: 1. What impact do matriculated undergraduate college…

Extensive literature has compared the effect of selective schools with that of non-selective schools on pupil outcomes in England. However, evaluation of selective systems has been sparse and contradictory. From the perspective of educational equity, this study assesses the potential impact of academically selective school systems on pupils'…

Year 12 students in Big Picture Learning schools across Australia now use portfolios and interviews to apply for and gain entry to their first choice of university degree. They receive admission on the strength of portfolio evidence mapped to a new non-ATAR qualification, known as the International Big Picture Learning Credential (IBPLC). Since…

Some universities, often the most prestigious in a higher education system, select qualified applicants solely on the basis of their measured academic or cognitive abilities. The universities' assumption is that these cognitive abilities are an accurate and complete measure of the applicants' capacity to benefit from university study. This study…

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 "push out" low-achieving, more-challenging, or more-costly students. Using longitudinal student-level data from Indiana, we created…

Recent research into imposter phenomenon, or internal feelings of questioning competence, has shifted away from conceptualizing the feeling as an individual characteristic that requires an individual solution toward instead examining the role of context. We used a 2 (Generational Status: First Generation vs. Continuing Generation) × 3…

In this paper, Caitlin Murphy Brust and Hannah Widmaier begin with the assumption that highly selective institutions of higher education in the United States have a duty to promote civic equality. They employ Wendy Salkin's theory of informal political representation to examine how highly selective institutions should go about promoting civic…

This study examines the extent to which school choice in the Toronto Catholic District School Board impacts equity and segregation. This examination is important because full public funding for the Board should adhere to the goals of public education, namely, equity and inclusion of all students. A critical policy geography perspective is applied…

This book seeks to disrupt the narrative about the process of academic writing and the written products which are currently valued in the university by juxtaposing the messiness and deletions of the writing process with the hegemonic imaginary of what research writing "should" look like. The author uses writing as both a subject and a…

In Chile many university students do not persist to graduation. Some students dropped out in the first year, others later. The objective of this study, based on students admitted to but not graduating from selective universities, was to identify factors associated with their academic success and length of persistence before withdrawal. The 707…

How does a policy of free tuition affect student applications to universities? This article assesses how free tuition influences applications in terms of the selectivity of the university, length of the degree program, cost of the program, and application to a program in the STEM field. The study based on a quasi-experimental design was carried…

The prevalence of private supplementary tutoring (i.e. shadow education) is growing, particularly in nations with selective school exams. The hypothesis that tutoring attendance rises as pressure to perform increases has not yet been tested. Therefore, our research question is: does the likelihood of attending shadow education increase with an…

Low-income students are underrepresented at selective colleges. Most evaluative criteria used by admissions officers are correlated with income, including test scores and performance in high school. Inspired in part by the current state of the use of testing in college admissions, this study examines how the quality of colleges attended by…