This paper examines the factors influencing preferences for undergraduate study using administrative data on applications to the state university system of Sri Lanka, which is characterized by centralized administration, rule-based admissions, and virtually costless applications. The feature of costless applications implies that students are…

While established educational pathways exist in many nations, the Philippines offers a unique opportunity to investigate the development of entirely new ones. Prior to the 2010s, compulsory education only extended through grade 10, with all students on a general track. The implementation of the 2013 Enhanced Basic Education Act significantly…

Going to university is a key route to enhancing life opportunities for young people and for promoting social mobility. Despite the action of widening participation programs, substantial sociodemographic inequalities in participation persist. Few studies have focused on the role that school attended may play in exacerbating or mitigating these…

Year 12 students in Big Picture Learning schools across Australia now use portfolios and interviews to apply for and gain entry to their first choice of university degree. They receive admission on the strength of portfolio evidence mapped to a new non-ATAR qualification, known as the International Big Picture Learning Credential (IBPLC). Since…

Without standardized tests, college admissions may reward high schools' reputation over effectiveness--a phenomenon we study in Peru. We first estimate the impact of selective public exam schools on college outcomes by leveraging the admissions mechanism in a single- and multiple-offers RDD. Despite no conclusive evidence of learning gains,…

In Iran, a large number of adolescents compete every year to enter university, given the better job opportunities that may exist after graduation. The hope of having more education affects students' academic engagement. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between academic hope and academic engagement with the mediating…

How does a policy of free tuition affect student applications to universities? This article assesses how free tuition influences applications in terms of the selectivity of the university, length of the degree program, cost of the program, and application to a program in the STEM field. The study based on a quasi-experimental design was carried…

The paper argues that contemporary test validity theory places the consequences of testing on the lives of all college applicants at the back of the test validation argument. It introduces the notion of test efficacy as a process to gather evidence on claims on consequences of testing on all college applicants that can be traced back to validity.…

The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of educational choice on the intention to enter the examination, and the mediating role of career decision-making self-efficacy. A total of 1391 freshmen from six higher vocational colleges in Guangdong Province of China were investigated with Education Choices Scale, Career Decision-Making…

External privatisation of public education has emerged in Finland in the admission to higher education. A field analysis of thematic interviews (N = 22) with powerful actors in the private educational market and middle-class young people applying for places at universities in the highly competitive disciplines of medicine and law was conducted.…

Analysis of data on school leavers in Scotland points towards considerable inequality in access to higher education. This is highlighted in terms of participation in higher education by young people from lower-income households or identifying as first in their families to consider going to university. The situation is more acute in terms of access…

Today, numerous countries utilize unified methods and systematic standardized examinations such as national examinations as formal procedures to select qualified applicants for admission to higher education institutions since higher education is viewed as the major path and criterion to upward mobility. In Iran, the university entrance examination…

Personal statements are among the most commonly used instruments in college admissions procedures. Yet, little research on their reliability, validity, and fairness exists. The first aim of this paper was to investigate hypotheses about adverse impact and underprediction for female applicants, which could result from lower tendencies to use…

This paper examines the social fever of MBBS (undergraduate medical) aspiration in India. It analyzes interviews conducted with 139 pharmacy graduates and 37 currently enrolled students in the western Indian state of Gujarat, of whom 147 pursued but failed to get admission to medical college. Respondents include graduates from the 1970s onwards.…

Recent statistics found the prevalence of dyslexia in UK medical schools to be 7%, sitting below the national prevalence of 10%. The factors contributing to this discrepancy are currently unknown, but may result from an interplay of individual and systemic barriers to entering medicine. This collaborative, analytic autoethnography aimed to use the…