Research on college choice decisions of high school students has increased over the past forty years but has generally centered on demographic characteristics such as race, gender, or socio-economic status of students. There has been little research on the influences on the college choice decisions of high academically achieving students from…

The goal of equal educational opportunity remains unrealized at most of America's colleges. The children of wealth and privilege fill nearly all the seats at these institutions, while the children of poverty are almost completely absent. Far too often, a young person's educational path is determined not by intellect, but by parental income. That a…

Developed in response to concerns that too few students were enrolling and succeeding in postsecondary education, early college high schools are small schools that blur the line between high school and college. This article presents results from a longitudinal experimental study comparing outcomes for students accepted to an early college through…

Developed in response to concerns that too few students were enrolling and succeeding in postsecondary education, early college high schools are small schools that blur the line between high school and college. This article presents results from a longitudinal experimental study comparing outcomes for students accepted to an early college through…

Today a college degree is considered the ticket to a good job and the gateway to economic advancement. A student's chances of gaining admission to college, however, are often based more on parental wealth than the student's achievements. At the nation's most selective colleges, three percent of incoming freshmen come from families in the bottom…

Relations between early child care and adolescent functioning at the end of high school (EOHS; M age = 18.3 years) were examined in a prospective longitudinal study of 1,214 children. Controlling for extensive measures of family background, early child care was associated with academic standing and behavioral adjustment at the EOHS. More…

Background: Early college high schools, small schools that blur the line between high school and college, have been obtaining very strong results. This paper uses the frame of student engagement to posit an explanation for the success of these schools. Purpose: This paper examines the impact of early college high schools on indicators and…

This article focuses on historical admissions policies and offers a more nuanced and more substantial treatment of the relationship between Populism and higher education. Prior accounts of admissions in the late nineteenth century have sensibly focused upon the tension between secondary school leaders who were mindful of their multiple…

Unless we sharply increase the training of homegrown math and science talents, we may suffer negative economic and technological consequences. One means of addressing this challenge has been through specialty schools devoted to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) training. In 1980, the North Carolina School of Science and…

The purpose of this research was to examine the college and career plans of a high-achieving group of students, high school valedictorians, to determine whether the females had equal aspirations with the males at the end of the senior year of high school in terms of their intended college major, the selectivity of their chosen college, and for…