While many high schools reproduce social inequalities in college access, little is known about the schools that successfully reduce them. To this end, Gorana Ilic and James E. Rosenbaum studied an urban high school that expressed a strong commitment to supporting all students' college applications. In this article, they describe the organizational…

Many college-intending students find themselves dealing with the undermatch and summer melt phenomena. Undermatch refers to the situation where academically-successful high-school graduates choose not to go to any college or to go to a local community college not commensurate with their academic achievements. Summer melt describes how students may…

Houston school officials noticed their best performing low-income students weren't applying to Ivy League and selective colleges. In response, they created EMERGE, a program that develops and guides talented youths toward a top-college path.

In this article, the author argues that traditional college entrance requirements exercise a detrimental effect on other elements of the educational system. She begins by looking at the way that the entire K-12 system is skewed toward meeting the needs of those students headed for selective colleges and universities and the way less successful…