This paper investigates the role played by self-confidence in college applications. Using incentivized experiments, we measure the self-confidence of more than 2,000 students applying to colleges in France. The best female students and students from low socioeconomic status (low-SES) significantly underestimate their rank in the grade distribution…

To evaluate how Advanced Placement courses affect college-going, we randomly assigned the offer of enrollment into an AP science course to over 1,800 students in 23 schools that had not previously offered the course. We find no substantial AP course effects on students' plans to enroll in college or on their college entrance exam scores. Yet AP…

School counselor education program administrators (N = 131) responded to an online questionnaire where the importance and extent of implementation of The College Board's National Office of School Counselor Advocacy (NOSCA) Eight Components of College and Career Readiness in their school counselor education program were assessed. The mean…

This is the Executive Summary for the full report, "Complexity in College Admission: The Barriers between Aspiration and Enrollment for Lower-Income Students." In September 2007, the College Board formed the Task Force on Admissions in the 21st Century in response to a request from the Guidance and Admission Assembly Council (GAA…

In September 2007, the College Board formed the Task Force on Admissions in the 21st Century in response to a request from the Guidance and Admission Assembly Council (GAA Council) to more closely examine the high school-to-college transition process. Students and parents complained about the lack of transparency in the process, the confusing…

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…

Here, the narratives of a group of non-traditional students who entered traditional UK universities are examined. A number of participants felt there was a kind of romance or exotic quality to the sights, sounds and smells of traditional institutions, which constituted part of the attraction. The process of becoming a student at an elite or…

Argues that the competitive admissions system forces students to constrain their natural impulse toward commitment. Describes the use of scattergrams to provide students with more accurate information about selectivity. (JAC)

Argues that although the genius of the community college idea rests in its capacity to channel aspirations for upward mobility into jobs needed by the economy, this mobility is for the most part illusory; thus the community college protects the portals of elite institutions. (Author/JM)

Accessibility to a college education in Ontario, Canada, was assessed by studying the pattern of acceptances and rejections of various choices made by unregistered college applicants. Study concerns included: total offers to programs of choice from any college and from an Ontario college only; offers by institution type and program type for first…

This digest provides students, parents, and educators with guidelines to help gifted students in the college planning process. As learning about oneself and career options is essential to college planning, a 6-year program of guidance activities is outlined for grades 7-12. Learning about colleges is discussed in terms of two steps, the first…

Two studies were conducted by a New England university during the 1986-87 school year to gain a better understanding of the factors influencing individuals' decisions to attend graduate/professional school. One purpose of the two projects was to develop school-specific databases to: provide graduate school administrators with information regarding…

The purpose of this ongoing project is to provide financial aid administrators with a description of the College Investment Decision Study, while placing it in perspective in relation to the objectives of other recent microeconomic surveys: Project Talent, National Longitudinal Study, Thorndike-NBER Panel, PSAT Study, SCOPE Study, and Growth…

Looks at books about college admissions, and at the unexamined prejudices fueling the elite college admissions frenzy. Powerful emotions, of students and parents alike, get mixed up in the college admissions process. Class anxiety, culture wars and other prejudices, not academic standing or faculty credentials, all contribute to making some…

The transition process from high school to college is considered from the perspective of a high school practitioner. Educational, social/personal, and financial factors that influence student planning are discussed. It is suggested that the secondary school must begin as early as the freshman year to help plan the curriculum the student will…