Low-socioeconomic status (SES) students are underrepresented at selective colleges, but the role that admissions offices play is poorly understood. Because admissions offices often have inconsistent information on high school contexts, we conducted a randomized controlled trial to determine whether providing detailed information on high school…

Medical schools all over the world select applicants using non-cognitive and cognitive criteria. The predictive value of these different types of selection criteria has however never been investigated within the same curriculum while using a control group. We therefore set up a study that enabled us to compare the academic performance of three…

Background/Context: Transfer from community colleges to selective four-year institutions is an issue that assumes great importance for the democratization of postsecondary education. Yet research on what influences transfer to selective four-year institutions is surprisingly sparse. Transfer research typically lumps four-year schools receiving…

In the conventional system of education, a student can regularly interact with teachers and peers and effectively and smoothly carry on with the learning process. However, in the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) system, students have to learn by themselves with the self-instructional materials and with the minimum guidance received from…

Israeli students ranked in the bottom third of the countries surveyed by PISA 2012 in mathematical literacy, while the gap between the highest and lowest scores was the second largest in the OECD. This paper explores which variables led to disparities in mathematical literacy between different socioeconomic levels and between Israeli Arabs and…

Race-based affirmative action policies are widespread in higher education. Despite the prevalence of these policies, there is little consensus on how affirmative action policies affect students either before they reach college or after they matriculate into college. This study provides new evidence on the benefits of affirmative action policies…

How colleges make admissions decisions at four-year institutions is facing high levels of scrutiny. Students, families, and policymakers are asking how offices of admissions decide to admit students. Increasing numbers of institutions are becoming test optional and/or using holistic admissions schemes, but little is known about how decisions are…

Most of the nation's bachelor's students attend what are often called "comprehensive universities," public institutions that primarily enroll students who live near the school and educate their students chiefly for jobs in the local economy. Relatively little research focuses on these institutions as a group, and therefore not much is…

Existing research finds minimal gains from attending elite US secondary schools. This paper estimates the causal effect of attending a selective public boarding school, an institutional model increasingly used by states to serve academically gifted students. Regression discontinuity estimates using multiple admissions thresholds show math score…

The unemployment problem of college students in China has drawn much attention from academics and society. Using the 2011 College Student Labor Market (CSLM) survey data from Tsinghua University, this paper estimated the effects of college quality on initial employment, including employment status and employment unit ownership for fresh college…

We attempt to prove the hypothesis that, under certain conditions, a phenomenon of propitious selection may arise on the higher education market: When talented university entrants favor applying to branded universities, the latter are able to automatically build up a positive reputation without having to actually improve the quality of their…

In the Netherlands, students are admitted to medical school through (1) selection, (2) direct access by high pre-university Grade Point Average (pu-GPA), (3) lottery after being rejected in the selection procedure, or (4) lottery. At Radboud University Medical Center, 2010 was the first year we selected applicants. We designed a procedure based on…

The 2016 Michigan Public High School Context and Performance Report Card is the third edition in a series of analyses designed to measure high school performance. The first report was published in 2012 (ED541512) and was followed by a 2014 analysis (ED560065). This report is a school-level assessment of academic performance based on a four-year…

In a sequential, explanatory mixed method design, we studied 1,126 students matched by high-achieving ability, income level, race, gender, and cohort at four-year college entry to determine whether the financial concerns of program students and a matched sample varied by selectivity of their freshman institution. Results indicate low-income…

The term "gender gap" refers to the significant underrepresentation of females in many subjects. In Computer Science, the gender gap exists at all career levels. In this article, we study whether there is a performance gap in addition to the gender gap. To answer this question, we analyzed statistical data on student performance in…