Undocumented immigrants face learning, compliance, and psychological costs when confronting in-state resident tuition (ISRT) policy implementation. Building on administrative burdens scholarship and using qualitative data from 19 semi-structured interviews with undocumented youth immigrants, this article examines administrative burdens that may…

The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) is a nonprofit, voluntary, professional association that relies on its membership to provide content, leadership, feedback, and financial support. The association promotes the well-being and advancement of professionals in the higher education community by engaging…

Enrollment Management offices serve a vital role in the recruitment and retention of students. Despite the rapid evolution of the field, little research exists exploring the competencies needed for success. A job advertisement analysis identified a number of similar competencies needed across enrollment management, as well as competencies unique…

Profiles describing a high school's quality and composition are one component of the undergraduate admission application to selective colleges, offering admission officers insight into a student's academic environment. This study explores alignment between the data admission officers seek in a profile to support their holistic evaluations and the…

We analyze eight letters of recommendation written by high school teachers for first-generation college students, so as to illustrate narrative strategies that can make letters more effective in providing support for students' college applications. Amidst recent criticisms of the limited utility of letters in college admissions, we argue that they…

Admission to highly selective institutions offers a pathway to upward social mobility, particularly for low-resource students. However, entrenched wealth disparities in the United States present serious challenges for admission officers at highly selective institutions. Utilizing individualized holistic review (IHR), including letters of…

The November 2019 60-Second Survey (provided in the appendix) inquired about the use of territory management for undergraduate and graduate students. For the purpose of this survey, territory management has been defined as follows: "Territory management is the assignment of an admissions representative to a population of targeted students.…

This paper explores how fairness was conceptualised by those responsible for admission to highly selective undergraduate courses at 17 universities in England. Fairness was conceptualised principally with reference to the traditional "meritocratic equality of opportunity" paradigm, which holds that university places should go to the most…

The National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) and the Character Collaborative worked together to develop a survey of secondary school counselors and college admission offices. Survey questions were designed to better understand the nature of any character development programs offered by secondary schools in the US, and to…

The January 2020 60-Second Survey was designed to serve two purposes: (1) to benchmark institutional-level use of enrollment management and strategic enrollment management (SEM) plans; and (2) gather individual interest in enrollment management research (Appendix A). The survey was open to all American Association of Collegiate Registrars and…

College admissions leaders increasingly desire to incorporate non-cognitive factors like grit into admissions decisions. Consequently, we examined the validity of the short grit scale (Grit-S) using data collected on undergraduates attending 38 colleges. Using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), we found that Grit-S does not possess adequate model…

Although it is well established that college entrance exams have become a key factor for admission to selective institutions, less is known about the influence of test scores in relation to other academic factors in the evaluation of a student's application file. This study conducts a randomized-controlled trial to determine whether providing…

This mixed-methods study used open-response survey data, focus groups, and an experimental simulation to explore how 311 admissions officers defined and used concepts of holistic review in selective college admissions. We found that 3 distinct definitions of holistic review predominate in the field: whole file, whole person, and whole context. We…

This article examines how diversity is constructed in college recruiting, with a focus on the ways in which recruiters' interpretations of diversity are conceptualized, practiced, and (mis)aligned with those represented in institutional messaging in higher education. Through the lens of Discourse Theory, this study demonstrates how distinct…

Inclusivity in data reports for undocumented students can be difficult to achieve. By nature of those students' status and livelihood, there is contention among academics and practitioners on whether this is a population that should not be formally tracked or identified, for a variety of reasons. Concerns about tracking arise because of the…