The study explores how alumni can help community colleges in Southern Appalachia to create greater access for people in groups which are traditionally under-served by higher education. Semi-structured interviews conducted with alumni program directors and admissions officers at seven community colleges in the Southern Appalachian Region explore…

Most people in admissions have a road story. There are tales of wrong turns, lost suitcases, and days when they were just well-dressed ghosts, walking in and out of high schools where no students came to see them. These are the trials of admissions representatives who leave their campuses for several weeks each fall. They trek near and far to meet…

The vast majority of high school students plan to attend college, but little is known about the postsecondary enrollment of students who exit high school with certificates of completion or individualized diplomas. With as many as 10% of all high school completers in some states earning documentation other than the high school diploma, it is…

Given the intense efforts to change federal legislation, it is surprising that relatively little research has examined how postsecondary institutions respond to organizational pressures and local contexts. These "boundary activities" determine actual practice (Birnbaum, 1991) and may be the only way to remedy the exclusion of undocumented…

A questionnaire about the campus environment for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT)community yielded responses from 411 institutions in 2003. The findings showed that 382 colleges and universities included sexual orientation in their nondiscrimination policies, up from 347 institutions two years earlier. About 85 percent of the…

In order for individualized review in college admissions to be fair, issues of consistency and reliability must be considered. There are a number of ways to assess interrater reliability, including calculating the composite reliability of readers, computing the proportion of times that readers make consistent ratings, and evaluating reader…

This paper presents the results of a nationwide survey of deans, associate deans, and directors who make recommendations concerning the admission of applicants to graduate programs in their colleges and universities. A questionnaire was sent to a sample of academic officers in public and private institutions describing three different types of…

The study represents a first step in trying to gain a better appreciation for the complexity of the issues surrounding flagging test scores taken with nonstandard conditions and how the admission process can better serve students with disabilities. Surveys were sent to admission officers, guidance counselors, and disability service providers at…