The adoption of more rigorous California Sate University (CSU) admission requirements reflects a recent state-level trend calling for more standardized course work in California high schools. Assembly Concurrent Resolution 73 expanded the new CSU requirements, recommending actions to assure high school students access to higher education,…

The Michigan Mathematics Early Placement Test (MMEPT) is an assessment instrument that gives 11th-grade students an appraisal of their mathematical skills in relation to college expectations. Students who take the test receive a report letter that tells them, based upon their test results, approximately where they would be placed in mathematics if…

Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID) is a program designed to help underachieving students with academic potential prepare for entrance into colleges and universities. An evaluation of the AVID program was conducted to determine program effects. Program participants are primarily from low-income and ethnic minority backgrounds. The base…

Examines outcomes of a "bridge" course for first-year college students that emphasizes personal and psychological adjustment to the university experience to enhance the likelihood of academic success. Findings from 59 high-risk students who completed course suggest that goal of enhancing likelihood of academic success for such students was…

Argues that the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) should be discarded in college admissions since quality of the student's high school curriculum is a better predictor of college graduation and is the only factor that educators can modify. Also addresses concerns about the SAT and race, and the effort to identify student "strivers" whose…

As the Aimhigher programme is a targeted initiative, partnerships have to find ways of locating groups that are under-represented in higher education (HE) and selecting participants for interventions. If the selection criteria are not robust, resources will be misdirected, while overly narrow indicators can exclude legitimate participants and risk…

Every year approximately 800 students enrol in the tertiary preparatory course TPP7181 at the University of Southern Queensland. Successful completion of this course will allow students to enrol in either further preparatory level mathematics courses or undergraduate study. For many of the students enrolled in this course, the study of mathematics…

Institutions that allow late admission may be doing a disservice to students who have not adequately prepared for their transition to college. This research examined 785 admissions files of first-time, matriculated college freshmen at an open-access college. Data were collected regarding the demographics, characteristics, and academic performance…

This article examines the introduction of the final examination as an external national system of assessment of students in the transition from secondary school to university education. Since 1991 Slovenia has followed foreign models, the British one in particular; however, it has also considered its own traditional system of education. Students…

This article considers the transition from A-level to degree-level study from the schoolteacher's point of view. It highlights the conflicting subject philosophies that exist at A level, and the resistance to the revised English of Curriculum 2000 that has been apparent in debates about the nature of English Literature post-16. Its main argument…

This paper describes fourth-year outcomes (1993-94) of the Boeing Company-funded Applied Academics Project. Since the 1990-91 school year, the company has provided funds to improve and expand applied academics in 60 Washington high schools. Data were collected from pre- and post-surveys of students enrolled in the project's Applied Mathematics…

The Supergraduate program was developed by Hamilton High School (HHS), West Los Angeles College, and the University of California at Los Angeles to motivate and prepare underrepresented, "B minus" and "C plus" students to graduate from high school and consider pursuing postsecondary education. Twenty-five students started the…

The Board of Governors of California's Community College System, in executing California's Partnership for Excellence (PFE) Program, has recognized that the colleges operate within remarkably disparate social and economic environments, and that these differences include variation in factors that are likely to affect the performance of colleges on…

Current concepts of performance assessment are very promising, partly because they are consistent with approved curriculum practice. The contemporary rationale for performance assessment has been largely uninformed by past ideas and practices. Overreliance on standardized test scores prevails, despite the midcentury core curriculum movement and…

Although the IB (international baccalaureate) diploma has almost universal acceptance as a college-preparation standard for students studying in foreign countries, Germany and France are reluctant to accept this diploma for nationals studying in their own countries. The German state governments are particularly concerned about quality control and…