Higher education student selection has significant societal, institutional and individual impacts. Thousands of applicants apply only for nursing, one of the major higher education disciplines. As the nursing profession is characterised by cognitive requirements, higher education institutions assess the learning skills of nursing applicants.…

The purpose of this study was to examine music education faculty members' perceptions of admissions and selection criteria for entering master's students in music education degree programs. Using multistage sampling, we distributed a questionnaire to music education faculty at National Association of Schools of Music (NASM)-accredited institutions…

In Australian higher education, there is a tension between international students' English language proficiency (ELP) seen as inadequate, thus prompting the need for firm gatekeeping for quality control, and on the other hand, the financial dependence on international student revenues, and therefore, striving to attract international applicants.…

In recent decades, the long-standing mandatory requirement for standardized tests in higher education undergraduate admission has slowly lost ground to test-optional policies. However, in the first year of the global pandemic, American colleges and universities transitioned from mandatory to optional standardized test policies at a significantly…

Institutions of higher education face a great deal of pressure to be accessible, inclusive, and diverse, but these goals should not come at the expense of maintaining high standards. Universal and vigilantly enforced standards exist not only to safeguard students' best interests, but are crucial to the academic integrity and core educational…

This study continues an earlier (2021) examination of a program's move from an admissions framework that used standardized test score thresholds to a test-blind holistic review. While the initial study evinced holistic review as a more equitable gateway to honors education for students from underserved backgrounds (as compared to admission…

Eligibility is a policy construct unique to California. UC and CSU are the only US universities that distinguish between eligibility for admission and admission itself and set separate requirements for each. The eligibility construct derives originally from California's 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, which famously mandated that UC admit…

Background: Student success is the foundation for maintaining programmatic accreditation in all healthcare education programs. There is limited research on admissions criteria and predictors of success in physical therapist assistant education. The goal of this study was to understand the relationship between admissions criteria and student…

This perspective paper draws on the interest in ensuring that students who enter primary teacher training programs have a solid background knowledge of mathematics. We describe the access criteria and requirements for admission to the primary education degree programs at the Universidad de Alicante and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, in Spain,…

One frequently cited yet understudied channel through which funding levels impact college students is course availability--colleges are often forced to respond to budgetary pressure by reducing course offerings. We provide the first causal evidence on this mechanism at a community college, using administrative course registration data and a novel…

Today, colleges and universities use overt admissions preferences to create student bodies that reflect the ethnic, racial, or gender demographics of the population--at the expense of academic merit and preparedness. While the original aim of the policy was to end discrimination and promote fairness, it has led to unequal treatment on the basis of…

A key goal of many magnet programs is to improve student diversity in schools. This snapshot describes efforts by those participating in the U.S. Department of Education's Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP). Findings are based on surveys completed by most of the more than 160 schools recently funded by MSAP grants and interviews with their…

In this dissertation, I analyze the development and dissemination of state-level policies to prohibit colleges from considering criminal history for purposes of admissions otherwise known as ban the box in higher education. This research engages with practical and instructive questions of how individuals or coalitions can learn from other policy…

Holistic review is widely practiced in graduate admissions. However, despite its prevalence, there is a need to understand how practitioners approach holistic graduate admissions, how its practice relates to institutional priorities, and its potential implications for equitable access to graduate education. This exploratory mixed method study…

Master of Science (M.S.) programs, including geography through geographic information science and technology (M.S. GIST), play a key part in training the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workforce. A master's thesis has been a traditional part of geography programs, and across all kinds of disciplines the value of a thesis is…