It is argued that, despite a tendency toward standardization of student evaluation, it is possible to use college admission requirements to support academic rigor without creating barriers to admission. There is evidence to support use of special recruitment and admissions programs and alternative testing methods. The College Board's role is…

This article argues that standards of the American Association of Law Schools and the American Bar Association result in race norming in law school admissions, with substantially lower admission standards for African Americans and notes that proponents of such policies have been less than candid in a recent controversy concerning Georgetown Law…

Federal Supreme Court and appellate court decisions in 1996 concerning discrimination against college students are reviewed. Several decisions deal with diversity and the lawfulness of excluding applicants under a diversity rationale or extending preferences to certain classes of applicants to enhance diversity. Other cases of discrimination based…

An examination of the debate over affirmative action policies in higher education finds that increasingly, conservative black scholars are opposing continuation of affirmative action. In addition, the movement is gaining credibility through the activities of conservative academic groups such as the National Association of Scholars. These groups…

This paper describes the college admission process through the conceptual lens of Dickason's (2001) phases of affirmative action. The first phase, obligatory affirmative action, describes the history of affirmative action and the impact on college admission. The second phase, voluntary affirmative action, describes University of West Florida's…

This article evaluates the "mismatch" hypothesis, advocated by opponents of affirmative action, which predicts lower graduation rates for minority students who attend selective post-secondary institutions than for those who attend colleges and universities where their academic credentials are better matched to the institutional average. Using two…

J. Michael Thompson is the Vice Provost for Enrollment Management and Dean of Admission and Financial Aid at the University of Southern California. J. Michael has worked in higher education for more than 30 years in a variety of roles at small private and mid-sized and large public universities, and now at USC, a large private university. He has…

In exploring the relationship between cultural capital, symbolic violence and the diversification of the curriculum the notion of commoditization of race in higher education is developed. The term first and foremost emphasizes how students from "disadvantaged" racialized communities remain significantly underrepresented at selective…

Research that has traditionally supported program accreditation has tended to be primarily descriptive in nature, focusing on outcomes such as the satisfaction of graduates and passing rates on licensure exams. The study reported here illustrates how research employing multivariate methodologies can go beyond such descriptive reporting to address…

Two studies explored the experience and performance of students at Williams College in three-person groups that were homogeneous or heterogeneous in rated academic ability. In accord with hypotheses from Festinger's (1954) social comparison theory, students in academically homogeneous groups had more positive experiences and performed better on…

This report presents the fall 1993 freshman admission requirements adopted by the individual public universities and community colleges in Illinois. The first section explains the specific high school courses required for regular admission as freshmen to Illinois public universities and community colleges beginning with the fall 1993 entering…

In 1985-86, Kalamazoo College participated in a project to promote student transfer from two-year colleges. Among the accomplishments of the project were the preparation of a general transfer student brochure addressing issues of admissions, financial aid, credit transfer, and academic advising; the distribution of a quick reference sheet stating…

The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) Validity Study Service was created to enable graduate schools of management to investigate the adequacy of the devices and procedures they use for selection purposes and to facilitate the accumulation and summary of data from many individual graduate management schools. Participating schools are…

Stressing the importance of proper management and careful integration of instructional and support programs, this monograph argues that access and selectivity in the community college can complement and temper each other. Chapter I offers a brief historical overview of the relationship between access and selectivity in American higher education,…

Accessibility to a college education in Ontario, Canada, was assessed by studying the pattern of acceptances and rejections of various choices made by unregistered college applicants. Study concerns included: total offers to programs of choice from any college and from an Ontario college only; offers by institution type and program type for first…