Many colleges, Harvard among them, offer preferential admission to the children of alumni. The legacy preferential system perpetuates elitism and the status quo and places blacks and other minorities, whose parents were less likely to have gone to college, at a real disadvantage. (SLD)

The incremental contribution of an interview to the student admission process was studied for 331 applicants accepted as undergraduates at a private university. Interviews provide information about applicants and correlate to grade point average (GPA). Interviewer judgments do not contribute incremental variance to prediction of admissions…

The legal activity in federal courts related to affirmative action indicates a strong possibility the Supreme Court will abolish affirmative action in college admission. Such a decision would inevitably alter the landscape of higher education. Campus diversity will have to be achieved without using race or ethnicity to offer preference to some at…

Elite universities will be returning to court to clarify the murky ruling in "Grutter v. Bollinger". Thomas E. Wood predicts that judges will again have to pass judgment on the constitutionality of dubious scheming by elite universities to achieve their critical mass of black students legitimately--without resort to tacit quotas and…

The admissions decision-making process at Dartmouth College is described in transcriptions of National Public Radio broadcasts. Applicants who are accepted have to be approved at Round Table, where their cases are considered for 30 days by 13 admission officers. These Round Table discussions of specific applicants, whose identities are concealed,…

The problem of improving the quality of incoming college students and practicing fairness in admissions was studied at Boston College. The study sample was over 2000 accepted applicants who completed an admissions questionnaire. A systematic admissions procedure is described that provides an index of applicant "quality," and the rating…

Discusses factors which influence the acceptance of particular students at highly competitive colleges. Suggests that admissions officers especially prefer athletes, minority students, and alumni children. Other preferred applicants include school leaders, students with artistic talent or notable personal strengths, and students from wealthy…

The problem associated with validating an admissions test when such validation is based solely on the scores of the accepted, and therefore, restricted, group of applicants is demonstrated. A correction formula that estimates the correlation between admission test scores and a subsequent measure of performance for the entire group of applicants is…

Discusses the need for consensus about the ethics of need-blind admission by focusing on principles concerning the practice of college admissions. Argues that colleges should not abandon need-blind admissions but should, instead, remove expectations that colleges should meet the full needs of all the students they accept. (RJM)

The study analyzed data on 10,000 students with disabilities who took the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) between 1979 and 1983. It also examined college admissions policies toward such youth in terms of academic performance, minority status, parental income, and other characteristics. Major findings included the following: (1) the SAT performance…

This book offers detailed information on college admissions designed to demystify the process for student applicants. Part I opens by arguing that the college admissions process is a mystery to many applicants because in large part admissions officers would prefer to have it that way in order to retain greater control. Other chapters in this…

This report discusses a multiphase project to develop a user-oriented survey of prior accomplishments of graduate student applicants to aid admissions committees and graduate departments in the selection process. The three phases included: (1) development of three prototype instruments based on a checklist approach, a semi-documented approach, and…

This study applied probability models in a four-year case study at a selective liberal arts college. The study found that, while admissions decisions matched institutional goals for student characteristics, discrepancies between acceptance and enrollment decisions frustrated the institution's efforts to achieve diversity and highlighted the…

This report addresses the problem of underrepresentation of minorities in the health care professions and presents results of a comparative study that examined the factors differentiating schools that enroll and graduate relatively large numbers of minority students from those who do not. Study findings revealed that schools with higher minority…

This guide describes the admission criteria utilized by faculties of education in 50 postsecondary institutions in Canada, arranged by province. For each entry the following information is provided: a listing of the teacher education programs, selection requirements and procedures for various types of degree programs; statistics on 1992-93…