The advent of the modern form of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), brought to bear by the combination of the Educational Testing Service (ETS) and Harvard's former president James Bryant Conant (Lemann 1999), was designed to promote the recognition of talent and intellect, wherever they may be found. Their aim was to provide greater educational…

Those who design admissions policies and procedures are the gatekeepers of higher education, and thereby play a role in shaping the direction of human society. Every year selective universities face the difficult challenge of sifting through the application materials of millions of high school graduates and deciding which applicants should be…

The author recently spent a year and a half in the admissions office of a highly selective Eastern college as an ethnographer, seeking to understand just how admissions officers make their decisions. He accompanied them on recruitment trips to high schools and college fairs, helped manage their offices' relentless current of visitors and mail, and…

Teach For America (TFA) and the Teaching Fellows programs are an important and growing source of teachers of hard-to-staff subjects in high-poverty schools, but comprehensive evidence of their effectiveness has been limited. This report presents findings from the first large-scale random assignment study of secondary math teachers from these…

This policy brief focuses on the School District of Philadelphia's high school selection process and the ways in which it reinforces and compounds inequities that already exist among the District's tiered system of selective, non-selective, and charter high schools. Focused in particular on the impact that these policies have on non-selective…

This paper unites quantitative and qualitative data from the College Social Life Survey (n = 732) to describe and explain patterns of racial homophily in undergraduate sexual/romantic relationships at an elite university, a closed social setting. It expands the literature on interracial romantic unions by comparing homophily in hookups…

This paper shows that although the top ten percent of colleges are substantially more selective now than they were 5 decades ago, most colleges are not more selective. Moreover, at least 50 percent of colleges are substantially less selective now than they were then. This paper demonstrates that competition for space--the number of students who…

Are we facing the end of racial preferences in America? Mr. Clegg thinks we probably are, and examines the role demographics, law, attraction, and vision may play in their demise. What makes preferences still attractive to so many people? Do most Americans share a vision that includes the continued use of racial preferences? Mr. Clegg offers a…

Sixty years after graduating its first Black midshipman, Wesley Brown, the U.S. Naval Academy has admitted its most diverse class, which boasts the largest numbers and percentages of African-Americans and Hispanics ever to enter Annapolis. The academy has touted the racial and ethnic composition of the class of 2013 as the result of aggressive…

In January 2011, the University of Southern California Center for Enrollment Research, Policy, and Practice in conjunction with the Education Conservancy convened a national workshop--a unique experiment meant to consider "The Case for Change in College Admissions." Its 180 participants included university and college admissions officers…

The girls of girls' schools, the author believes, are a kind of Platonic Form of American girl, an ideal to which most of the rest of society, of the country's meritocratic system, aspires for their daughters, a reflection of one's deepest values. She believes girls all over the country, in all high schools, want The Dream. They want to achieve…

Over the past decade, a small revolution has taken place at some of the world's leading universities, as they have started to provide free access to undergraduate course materials--including syllabi, assignments, and lectures--to anyone with an Internet connection. Yale offers high-quality audio and video recordings of a careful selection of…

This article reports the results of a new study on the impact of bans on race-conscious admissions policies which seem to confirm what many critics of affirmative action have long suspected: It is Asian-Americans, rather than whites, who are most disadvantaged by elite universities' consideration of ethnicity and race. Left unanswered are the…

Colleges already know how to close the gap between the graduation rates of black and white students, but too few have been willing to take the steps needed to do it, according to a report released last week by Education Sector, a Washington-based research group. The report, "Graduation Rate Watch: Making Minority Student Success a Priority," is…

Emulation by example is an old adage that has been a pragmatic initiative in great endeavors. To create a dynamic research culture too requires revisiting eminent personality and renowned organization by which one can copy in order to establish credibility. This paper explores the practicality of the emulation activities that help to establish…