Most American colleges and universities require standardized entrance exams when making admissions decisions. Scores on these exams help determine if, when and where students will be allowed to pursue higher education. These scores are also used to determine eligibility for merit based financial aid. This testing persists even though half of the…

A nationally representative sample of high school students is used to examine where students go for college information and how those information sources affect the number of schools to which students apply. Results show that Latino/a students are least likely to access college sources and have applied to the fewest number of schools. Among…

Previous research suggested that candidates from some black and minority ethnic groups were less likely to receive an offer of a place from an "old" university. These findings were disputed in a re-analysis carried out for HEFCE which found that only Pakistani candidates were significantly less likely to receive offers (from both…

A public college in Mexico City randomly assigns applicants into a group that can immediately enroll and a group that can only do so after one year. The author shows that the standard model of educational decisions predicts no (or minimal) effect of deferral on educational attainment. He surveyed the applicants to this college for the 2007/2008…

The 2016 Graduate Study in Psychology Summary Report reflects data collected from more than 500 departments and programs offering master's and doctoral degrees in psychology and related training. This report represents data from the 2013-2014 academic year and aggregates these data in the following areas: survey participation; admissions review,…

Critics say that for-profit career colleges--which, according to industry figures, enrolled 3.2 million students in the United States in 2009--have been plagued by deceptive recruiting practices that lure students into programs they could find elsewhere for much less money. Students often borrow tens of thousands of dollars to attend these…

Today a college degree is considered the ticket to a good job and the gateway to economic advancement. A student's chances of gaining admission to college, however, are often based more on parental wealth than the student's achievements. At the nation's most selective colleges, three percent of incoming freshmen come from families in the bottom…

There are increasing numbers of non-native English speaking applicants to Canadian universities (AUCC 2008a, 2010), which are committed to promoting linguistic and cultural diversity (AUCC 2008b). One result of this trend is that university admissions officers, as gatekeepers, are faced with a growing and potentially confusing array of language…

The campus tour is one of the most effective recruitment tools for higher education institutions, impacting prospective students' perceptions of college choice decision criteria, including academic quality. This study examined the impact of sharing academic success stories during the tour on prospective students' perceptions of academic quality,…

Recent research on the college application essay has shown that essay prompts are misleading, and that the expectations of admissions officers remain largely implicit. These studies have not, however, examined how essays written by low-income, ethnic minority students are scored by admissions officers. For this study, forty-two seniors at a…

University admissions, like many other aspects of the higher education sector, are going through a time of significant change. From 2012, universities will receive full funding under the Commonwealth Grants Scheme (CGS) for as many places as they offer. Previously, the Government limited the number of funded places, with a tolerance band for…

The paper examined the place of Distance Education (DE) as a method of Adult Education in Nigeria and its contribution to national development. The paper discussed DE practice and challenges in some African countries and related this to the Nigerian situation. The paper further noted the challenge of the national admission body for regular…

For its 16th annual Application Trends Survey, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) gathered and analyzed data from a total of 641 graduate business programs located at 306 universities worldwide to understand application volume, the applicant pool, and special efforts being made to attract candidates to graduate management programs.…

West Virginia's three state funded medical schools enroll more medical students per capita than any other state in the country. Due to its large number of medical student slots, the state typically is able to offer all qualified West Virginians the opportunity to complete their medical education in the state. In the academic year 2016-2017, 180 of…

Current Year 12 students form the largest single group of Australian university admissions, comprising approximately half of all admissions at Australian universities. For those Year 12 students who continue to tertiary study at Australian universities, the courses studied in Year 12 play an important role in preparing them for that further…