Many medical schools are paying closer attention to the interview as a powerful recruiting tool. Interviews can be unstructured, semistructured, or structured. A major problem with interviews is the interviewers' bias. Research reports of structured, semistructured, and unstructured interviews in the psychology and the medical education literature…

A case study in a developing country raises issues about the use of tests for educational selection. Issues concerning secondary school admission in developing countries have counterparts in admission criteria for higher education in developed nations. However, one case study of one system cannot provide definitive conclusions for others. (SLD)

This longitudinal study examines minority status stress and socio-cultural orientation among Latino freshmen as they enter a predominately White, elite, private institution. The study finds Latino freshmen report experiencing racism. Students respond to racism by developing an alienated sociocultural orientation and beginning to see their Latino…

The Freshman Index, a combination of SAT score and high school grade point average, is the primary mechanism facilitating admissions decisions at Georgia State University. This article examines the relationships between these three admissions criteria and the graduating grade point averages of Asian, Black, and White six-year graduates.…

In his role as area head of curriculum and instruction in a major university, the author reacts to some disturbing data that seem to indicate that far too many teachers are not certain about their previous career choices. Less than 50% of the respondents in a national study indicated that they would select teaching again with 8 of 10 of those…

Compares the public-choice model for school desegregation, which involves parents choosing magnet schools, to the command-and-control model, which involves mandatory reassignment plans, in order to evaluate the desegregation effectiveness of each plan. The public-choice model works for school desegregation. Mandatory reassignment produces more…

Research that has traditionally supported program accreditation has tended to be primarily descriptive in nature, focusing on outcomes such as the satisfaction of graduates and passing rates on licensure exams. The study reported here illustrates how research employing multivariate methodologies can go beyond such descriptive reporting to address…

Analyzes British Labour Party policy on educational selection in secondary schools, drawing on Mills's sociological imagination. Education selection figures prominently in distributional processes that (re)produce social relations within society. Achieving egalitarian ends is difficult while retaining consumerist spheres of influence stratified by…

Transforming schools into truly egalitarian institutions requires a holistic and integrated approach. Using a robust conception of "equality of condition", we examine key dimensions of equality that are central to both the purposes and processes of education: equality in educational and related resources; equality of respect and recognition;…

Many colleges, Harvard among them, offer preferential admission to the children of alumni. The legacy preferential system perpetuates elitism and the status quo and places blacks and other minorities, whose parents were less likely to have gone to college, at a real disadvantage. (SLD)

Considers what the higher educational status of black America and the nation as a whole would be if the Bakke decision had gone the other way and race-based affirmative action policies had been held unconstitutional from the beginning. A major erosion in blacks pursuing higher education would be expected. (SLD)

The recent decision of the High Court of Australia in "Griffith University v. Tang" denied judicial review to a student aggrieved by the decision of a university to exclude her. This article analyses the role of judicial review of university decision-making in the United Kingdom and Australia, analysing the justification for…

Many deregulated public charter schools are emphasizing parental involvement. But to what extent do the initiators of these charter schools use parent involvement and parent contracts to restrict enrollment to students whose parents demonstrate the desired commitments and willingness to meet school expectations? To explore this question, this…

This paper investigates the use of enrollment limitations by "flagship" state universities in regard to out-of-state (OOS) students, presenting a case study of the enrollment limitation debate in the University of North Carolina system and its Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) campus over the last decade. The state legislature, in concert with the…

This case study describes a rural school district's problems with its program for academically gifted and talented students and illustrates the process and outcome of a program evaluation. The program came into being in a hasty and expedient manner that satisfied the superintendent's desire for the notoriety accompanying school improvement while…