This paper examines how private college and university endowments affect financial aid, admissions selectivity, and the economic and racial composition of incoming students. Because endowment levels are a function of expenditures and alumni giving, which are endogenous to the outcomes of interest, the design exploits changes in endowments stemming…

Although tracking is typically the subject of secondary education, this embedded case study brings attention to the comparable mechanisms at work within postsecondary institutions that produce serious consequences for racially minoritized students admitted into the "low" track. By engaging Victor Ray's newly conceptualized theory of…

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…

To date, little research has focused solely on rural students' adjustment and integration on campus after admittance into elite universities through special admission policies. This qualitative inquiry aims to uncover the adjustment concerns faced by rural students enrolled through special admission policies in elite universities in China. The…

Dual enrollment (DE) is one of the fastest growing programs that support the high school-to-college transition. Yet, there is limited empirical evidence about its impact on either students' college application choices or admission outcomes. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity approach and data from two cohorts of ninth-grade students in one…

This study examined a holistic admissions review process at one institution to determine whether variance occurred and, if so, possible explanations for it. The study analyzed reader reviews for approximately 15,000 individual undergraduate admission reviews over three years. The primary method was focused on the variance and inter-rater…

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…

Affirmative action critics argue that race-conscious admissions policies are keeping Asian American enrollment numbers unfairly low because Asian American students are held to higher admissions standards than applicants of any other race or ethnicity. "Selective Bias: Asian Americans, Test Scores, and Holistic Admissions" evaluates the…

Special admissions processes for screening college applicants with criminal backgrounds are common in the U.S., both in universities and community colleges. However, there has been growing concern about their value for accomplishing their intended purposes, as well as their potentially harmful effects. While there is no evidence that colleges…

Research in education has long noted teachers' role in assisting social and ideological reproduction. Separately, scholarship has also investigated the use of extra-curricular activities in equipping disadvantaged students with social and cultural capital, to embark on social mobility. Positioned at the intersection of these two apparently…

I conduct a series of analyses aimed at assessing equity in selective American colleges over a 20+ year time frame. My main measures of equity are enrollment and completion in selective colleges, which I disaggregate by race/ethnicity. After creating an institutional-level panel data set with variables on college revenues and expenses, tuition,…

The graduate enrollment management (GEM) landscape is rapidly changing as faculty and administrators recognize biases that may affect the graduate admissions process. At the same time, there is growing recognition and increased effort to advance inclusive excellence in higher education. Much of this work has been done at the undergraduate level…

This article discusses a Transition Programme to support the inclusion of mature students in Higher Education. The Transition Programme was designed and it is currently provided by a Higher Education institution in Surrey, South-East of England. An outcome of innovative educational leadership, the Transition Programme' successfully solved the…

A burgeoning literature has documented the importance of elite colleges. Yet, little is known about access to elite education and its labor market implications in China, a country that produces one in every five college graduates in the world. College admission in China is governed by a single exam--the national college entrance exam, and the…

In this paper, an understanding of how an elite institution pursues diversity initiatives is explored. Research afforded a better understanding of strategies adopted for recruitment and retention whereby positive results were reported after implementation. Removing barriers that may prevent marginalized populations from enrolling were critical…