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…

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…

School choice lotteries are an important tool for allocating access to high-quality and oversubscribed public schools. While prior evidence suggests that winning a school lottery decreases adult criminality, there is little evidence for how school choice lotteries impact non-lottery students who are left behind at their neighborhood school. We…

This report is focused on the uptake of GCSE subjects in England in 2022. Uptake in a GCSE subject is defined as the number or percentage of students at the end of Key Stage 4 (KS4) taking the subject. This report was produced using publicly available data from the Department for Education's (DfE) "Find and compare schools in England"…

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…

The impact of academically selective schools on children's learning achievement has received global attention for decades. Despite the persistence of early-age selection in many countries, evidence of its impacts is mixed. This study analysed national achievement data covering 149,072 secondary school students and examined whether academically…

Dual enrollment (DE) is one of the fastest growing programs that support the high school-to-college transition. Yet, there is limited empirical evidence about its impact on either students' college application choices or admission outcomes. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity approach on data from two cohorts of ninth-grade students in one…

This research updates analysis from 2016 which examines the social composition of top performing comprehensives in England compared to all schools nationally. The aim of this research is to assess whether the top performing comprehensives are representative of their local areas in terms of the socio-economic background of their students. The 'top'…

Some families opt not to enroll their children in free public junior high schools, choosing instead those requiring rigorous entrance examinations. Attending selective junior high schools facilitates better education, employment, and higher salaries. To evaluate the significance of junior high school entrance examinations, this study investigated…

This report looks at the provision of A level subjects in England in 2021. Provision in a subject is defined as the number or percentage of schools with at least one student taking the subject. This report was produced using publicly available data from the Department for Education's (DfE) "Find and compare schools in England" service…

Scholarship on nonresident enrollment by public research universities has developed in isolation from scholarship on linkages between private high schools and selective private universities. We argue that these literatures are part of a broader story about the competition for students from affluent schools and communities. This manuscript analyzes…

Letters of recommendation from school counselors are required to apply to many selective colleges and universities. Still, relatively little is known about how this non-standardized component may affect equity in admissions. We use cutting-edge natural language processing techniques to algorithmically analyze a national dataset of over 600,000…

The following two articles are taken from the FORUM archive. First published in the autumn of 1981, they offer a restatement of comprehensive principles in the context of the educational policies of the incoming Conservative government from 1979. The first thing Margaret Thatcher's education secretary, Mark Carlisle, did was to repeal Labour…

Prior research finds that low-income students are less likely to apply to and enroll in four-year colleges or more selective colleges, even after controlling for academic preparation and other background characteristics. The College Board sought to reduce barriers in the college application process through a targeted campaign of brochures and…

The fairness and efficacy of the elite stream in general senior secondary education have long been a contentious issue. Based on the longitudinal data of the students who were enrolled in five senior secondary schools in X City in western China in 2017 and 2018, this study examined the effects of elite class streaming in improving student academic…