The College Boards started as achievement tests designed to measure students' mastery of college preparatory subjects. Admissions testing has significantly changed since then with the introduction of the Scholastic Aptitude Test, Lindquist's creation of the ACT, renewed interest in subject-specific assessments, and current efforts to adapt K-12…

Thirty years ago, Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. sent the nation's selective colleges down a path where few had ventured before. In the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark ruling in "Regents of the University of California v. Bakke," he wrote that colleges were legally justified in giving some modest consideration to their applicants' race, so…

Among the many groups of Barack Obama's supporters who considered him one of their own, and helped propel him into the presidency, were large numbers of the nation's college professors, administrators, and students. The president-elect won overwhelming support from academe throughout the campaign. The Obama campaign aggressively courted student…

Decisions about admissions to medical school are based on assessments of the applicants' cognitive achievements and non-cognitive traits. Admission criteria are expected to be fair, transparent, evidence-based and legally defensible. However, unlike cognitive criteria, which are highly reliable and moderately valid, the reliability and validity of…

Throughout the United States, legislators, business leaders, educators, and other stakeholders are debating the impending crisis of the shortage of mathematicians and scientists in the United States. Several books, such as Thomas Friedman's "The World Is Flat" and Ted Fishman's "China, Inc.," accentuate this growing dilemma.…

This paper documents the experience of incentive-based reforms in the secondary Islamic/madrasa education sector in Bangladesh within the context of the broader debate over modernization of religious school systems in South Asia. Key features of the reform are changes of the curriculum and policy regarding admission of female students. In return…

The Recalibrating the British Columbia (BC) Transfer System project initiated in 2005 proposed that the designation of institutions in the BC Transfer Guide as either "sending institution" or "receiving institution," according to their perceived primary function, should be examined. The results of the consultation indicated…

One after another at this time of year, elite colleges trumpet the outstanding SAT scores of the applicants they have admitted. The question often raised by such announcements is just how much those scores matter. Two recent studies conclude that they matter quite a lot. This article reports that researchers assert that selective colleges give…

Doctoral education in Canada is the constitutional responsibility of provincial governments, which authorize the awarding of degrees by universities, who determine admission criteria and procedures, as well as degree and programme requirements. Admission to a doctoral programme is either with a prior master's degree or by transfer from a master's…

The dreaded personal essay used to be the toughest part of the college-admissions process for the applicant. These days it's admissions officers who fret about student writing--and not just because they fall asleep reading endless takes on "overcoming adversity." They've got weightier concerns--plagiarized essays, students who receive…

Accreditation bodies, state departments of education, learned societies, and critics of educational leadership programs have emphasized the need for such programs to recruit and select the candidates who have the greatest potential of becoming effective school leaders. To meet this challenge, most university principal preparation programs have…

To spearhead increased emphasis on admissions, the British Columbia Council on Admissions and Transfer (BCCAT) formed an Admissions Committee in Fall 2003. The committee recognized the importance of institutional autonomy in determining admissions policies and processes at each institution. Following initiation of the Student Transitions Project…

Institutional research can enhance an institution's competitive advantage through admission research by comparing the characteristics of inquirers who apply with those who do not; by documenting trends in the characteristics of applicants; and by conducting studies of accepted students, comparing those who matriculate with those who do not.…

Advocates of using a US-style SAT for university selection claim that it is fairer to applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds than achievement tests because it assesses potential, not achievement, and that it allows finer discrimination between top applicants than GCEs. The pros and cons of aptitude tests in principle are discussed, focusing on…

The article describes institutional change in the Spanish higher education system over the past two decades. It singles out four variables in explaining this change: (i) demography, (ii) economic environment (the so-called knowledge society), (iii) the role and interests of academics and politicians, and (iv) the supranational stimulus to converge…