To address social inequality, many western governments have sought to pursue principles of 'widening participation' as a key policy response in higher education. Though originally intended to complement social justice policy agendas, alignment of education policies with broader neoliberal policy frameworks has led policymakers, such as those in…

This study explores whether there is a heterogeneous effect of high school college counselors on college application and enrollment. Most research on the impact of counselors has focused on the effect of traditional school counselors and not on high school college counselors, individuals whose primary responsibility is to assist students with…

Is your family just starting to think about visiting colleges? Maybe you are in the throes of the experience, feeling stressed out and overwhelmed. Did we miss a deadline? Should we be looking in-state or out-of-state, big school or small school? And what is a "FAFSA" anyway? "The Truth about College Admission" is the…

Over the past two years, the Indiana affiliate's Government Relations Committee (GRC) has undergone a metamorphosis. As co-chair, the author has had the opportunity to witness the once largely inactive committee grow by 250 percent. The affiliate has embraced storytelling as an important advocacy tool. In this article, the author shares a couple…

The following qualitative case study uses secondary data from admitted student surveys to understand how women make decisions about college choice at one institution where men outnumber women in enrollment despite relatively even rates of application and acceptance. Findings suggest that women applicants noted affective factors related to…

In the wake of last summer's disruption to the Higher Education entry process, this year's cohort of young people finishing school and college have faced their second consecutive year of disruption to their education, impacting their schooling, their exams and assessment, and the transition to their next steps in education. In 2021 pupils' grades…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to better understand the experiences faced by students during the application process for master's degree programs in speech-language pathology. Method: Data were collected through administering an online survey to 365 volunteers who had applied to master's degree programs in speech-language pathology. Survey…

The core theme of this article is the emerging tension between the egalitarian discourse that increases the general aspiration of people to become more educated and actual admission constraints. A desire to attend a university and not being allowed to (i.e. non-admittance) is a loss that can potentially result in an anomic condition. Anomie theory…

When students apply for university in the United Kingdom (UK), they do so on the basis of 'predicted grades'. These grades influence both students' decisions of where to apply, and the decisions made by the institutions they hope to attend. But, they are, more often than not, incorrect, with 9% of students underpredicted and 75% overpredicted.…

Accurately predicting which students are best suited for graduate programs is beneficial to both students and colleges. In this paper, we propose a quantitative machine learning approach to predict an applicant's potential performance in the graduate program. Our work is based on a real world dataset consisting of MS in CS [Master of Science in…

For many high school students, the cost of attending college poses a major barrier to continuing their education. Federal student aid provided through Pell grants, work study, and loans can offer students with low incomes an avenue toward receiving a postsecondary education. But for students to be eligible for federal student aid, they need to…

Holistic admissions practices require evaluating an applicant's credentials in light of the opportunities available in their high school context. High school grades, test scores, and course taking are clearly related to college grades, retention, and graduation. But does performance in high school context also relate to college success? Building a…

Purpose: The purpose of this tutorial is to introduce the interview as a complementary component to the holistic process for graduate admissions. To do so, procedural details of two master's degree programs in speech-language pathology are provided that successfully execute two different but effective interview methods for speech-language…

While existing research recognizes the importance of transitions in military members' lives, there are few, and to my knowledge no micro-level discourse analytic, studies illuminating how military veterans talk about their transitions into and out of the military. Taking an interactional sociolinguistic approach (Gumperz, 1977, 2015), I examine…

This paper explores the differential ways that working-class sixth-form students in England utilise cultural and social capital when applying to university. This process is examined in terms of the university and course choices made and associated social advantage and prestige. It employs an interpretive paradigm using qualitative methods and a…