Holistic admissions practices require evaluating an applicant's credentials in light of the opportunities available in their high school context. High school grades, test scores, and course taking are clearly related to college grades, retention, and graduation. But does performance in high school context also relate to college success? Building a…

Do students respond to sticker prices or actual prices when applying to college? These costs differ for students eligible for financial aid. Students who do not understand this may not apply to some colleges because of the perceived high cost. We test for this form of "sticker shock" using College Board data on SAT scores sent, as a…

Different uses of the ACT Assessment emphasize different intervals on its 1-36 score scale. Its use by colleges for applicant selection and course placement emphasize the middle and upper intervals of its score scale, and these uses have been extensively validated (ACT, 2019a). Its uses by school districts and state departments of education to…

The 2024 Nebraska Higher Education Progress Report is the 18th annual progress report designed to provide the Nebraska Legislature with comparative statistics to monitor and evaluate progress toward achieving three key priorities for Nebraska's postsecondary education system. These priorities were developed by the 2003 LR 174 Higher Education Task…

The value of a college degree continues to rise. A bachelor's degree in particular provides unrivaled economic and health benefits not just for the individual earning the degree, but for the entire state. Therefore, it is not surprising to see growing demand for a college education coupled with growing eligibility for California's public…

Most colleges and universities in the United States require students to take the SAT or ACT as part of the college application process. These tests are high stakes in at least three ways. First, most universities factor scores on these tests into admissions decisions. Second, higher scores can increase a student's chances of being admitted to…

"Late Interventions Matter Too--The Case of College Coaching in New Hampshire" examined whether providing college application coaching to high school seniors increased postsecondary enrollment. The program was aimed at students who were considering applying to college but who had made little or no progress in the application process, and…

This essay describes Louisiana State University's search for an alternative to available placement protocols. Under the leadership of Les Perelman at MIT, LSU collaborated with four universities to develop iMOAT, a program for administering online assessments of student writing. This essay focuses on LSU's On-line Challenge, which developed from…

This publication contains information about community colleges, the largest and fastest growing sector of U.S. higher education. Designed especially for students thinking about studying abroad in America, this publication provides information about: (1) College selection, application and visa processes, traveling to the United States, living in…

This study is an investigation of the derivation of scores that predict whether or not prospective first-time freshmen will apply or will enroll and whether or not first-time freshman enrollees will graduate using data from the ACT (American College Testing) assessment. Using a regression methodology, four basic scores are derived to be…

A study examined the relationship between the colleges students select initially to receive their college entrance examination scores (high-choice set) and their choice of institution to attend (college-of-enrollment). Data were drawn from records of 105,000 students taking the American College Testing (ACT) examination and enrolling in 1994. A…

Criticizes the game-playing of students who participate in Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) preparation courses, are tutored, and take the SAT again and again to render themselves eligible for the college of their choice. Advocates the matching of academically compatible students and colleges without this artificial score boosting. (KS)

The Admissions Testing Program (ATP) is a service of the College Board. The 1979 ATP summary reports on college-bound seniors were produced for each region of the United States, including New England, the Middle, Southern, Midwestern, Southwestern, Rocky Mountain, and Western States. The national and each regional report are in separate booklets.…

This study focuses on initial student interest in or demand for public, land-grant universities (PLGUs) within the six New England states for the years 1976-99. The study has three distinguishing features. First, time-series data for the six New England states are combined into a panel data set, and fixed effects and random effects models are used…

This report presents findings of the California State Postsecondary Education Commission's study of the eligibility of California's public high school graduates for freshman admission to the University of California and the California State University in the fall of 1986. The Commission systematically selected transcripts from 15,973 students from…