This paper uses the National Pupil Database to explore how grammar school opportunities vary among pupil groups, and how grammar school opportunities correlate with the Local Authorities (LAs), pupil backgrounds and attainment. The results show that grammar school admission is relatively fair, based on its selection criterion, but there is no…

Since 2014, the District of Columbia has used an annual common application to place new students from prekindergarten for 3-year-olds (PK3) through 12th grade in DC Public Schools (DCPS) and DC public charter schools. Though K-12 students have the right to attend their in-boundary school, this policy does not extend to students in PK3 or PK4…

The Supreme Court has established the parameters within which universities can practice race-conscious affirmative action for college admissions in a series of decisions beginning in l978. The key issues concern the educational impact of campus diversity and whether or not it is necessary to give some consideration to students' race into order to…

'Asian whiz kids' perfect test scores.' 'Selective schools and tiger parents.' These types of headlines highlight the increased visibility of academically successful students from Asian migrant backgrounds, in Australia and other Western countries. They also point to anxiety about the perceived aggressive 'tiger' parenting often associated with…

Using newly available data from the Trajectories in Education and Careers Study, the first longitudinal study on a representative sample of high school students in Russia, we examined the importance of investments in human and cultural capital on students' mathematics and reading standardized examinations, as well as on the likelihood of…

Within the past decade, there has been a growing number of studies examining undermatch--when students apply to or enroll in institutions less selective than their academic qualifications permit. To estimate undermatch, researchers must define institutions' selectivity levels and determine which students are eligible to gain admission to these…

International students enrich the campus culture and help domestic students to grow cross-cultural competencies, and international students have also contributed a lot to the revenue of both the hosting institutions and the U.S. economy. Regretfully, there has been a dearth of studies on international students, particularly in the areas of…

Research on college choice decisions of high school students has increased over the past forty years but has generally centered on demographic characteristics such as race, gender, or socio-economic status of students. There has been little research on the influences on the college choice decisions of high academically achieving students from…

This study examines the association between college-bound friends and college enrollment using restricted transcript data from the High School Longitudinal Study. Propensity score matching and school fixed effects models suggest that having close college-bound friends is positively associated with enrolling in college. However, Black and Latino…

Little is known about the school choice practices of Aboriginal families in settler-colonial societies, where they have been removed from their ancestral lands and/or have been subjected to discriminatory educational policies. Through the lens of settler-colonial theory, this study elucidates the "spatially positioned" school choice…

Black students are often tasked with negotiating racial microaggressions--subtle, racialized offenses--at historically White colleges and universities. Higher education scholarship has found that when Black students speak up in response to racial microaggressions, they tend to feel overburdened with having to educate the offending party. This…

This study examines how a specific form of parental support--parental validation--is related to students' college experiences and institutional commitment. Results based on a survey of first-generation and low-income students indicated that parental validation is related to students' social and academic engagement, sense of belonging, and…

Targets set by the UK Office for Students require highly academically selective UK universities to enrol a greater percentage of students identified as least likely to participate in higher education. Such students are typically at a disadvantage in terms of levels of academic preparedness and economic, cultural and social capital. Drawing on…

Graduate-level professional health care programs have a highly selective admissions process. Applicants can distinguish themselves by participating in High Impact Practices (HIPs) to enhance their undergraduate experience and academic and professional success. The variables analyzed in this study included acceptance, grade point average (GPA),…

Despite limiting access to applicants from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, the practice of using hard or soft Graduate Record Examination (GRE) cutoff scores in physics graduate program admissions is still a popular method for reducing the pool of applicants. The present study considers whether the undergraduate institutions of…