England has a 'pre-qualification' system of higher education admissions, where applications and offers are made to young people before exam results are received. While in most cases offers are conditional on achieving a grade target in A Level exams, recent years have seen an exponential growth in 'unconditional offers', where the offer of a place…

First-time entrants to tertiary education are required to make interconnected decisions about their field of study, the fees they will pay and the application requirements they are prepared to face. Their choice of programme and institution will be influenced by the costs and entry criteria. The decisions they make about what to study and where…

Focuses on the cultural meaning of university education and of participation in the extremely competitive entrance examinations to university, as viewed from a Greek provincial town. Notes that despite high graduate unemployment, university education and sitting for entrance examinations have important social status implications. (DSK)

Current trends in women's access to higher education in Greece were studied. Attention was directed to recent differences in achievement by sex, as well as factors influencing success patterns in the national examinations taken at the end of secondary education. Data were obtained from a questionnaire distributed to a 10 percent random sample of…