Access to higher education begins with a student's decision whether and where to apply to college. This paper examines racial and ethnic differences in college application behavior of high school graduates, using two recent graduation cohorts from Texas. We estimate racial and ethnic differences in the probability of applying to college,…

Presented at the AP Annual Conference (APAC) in Las Vegas, NV in July 2013. This analysis takes a close look at first-generation Advanced Placement® (AP®) test takers to better understand the needs and challenges they face on their path to college. The analysis focuses on college-bound AP test takers who also took the SAT and examines a variety of…

The inclusion of college preparation programs promote and forecast academic success in postsecondary studies among individual at-risk, African American urban high school students. Past research has shown ongoing, college acceptance, performance, and graduation gaps between at-risk, African American urban high school students when compared to…

Recent studies have revealed how large shares of college-ready students "undermatch", or enroll in colleges with less competitive admissions processes than they are eligible to attend. Undermatch sits at the nexus of both college access and completion agendas, as undermatching to a less selective institution results in a decreased…

Between January and October of 2013, nearly 3 million Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 graduated from high school. By October of that year, just two-thirds had enrolled in college. This report uses recently released nationally representative High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) data from Spring 2012 to examine American high…