College is often a fresh start for students, but some have pasts that follow them. Take, for instance, "S.D.," an 18-year-old man from Pennsylvania who wanted to go to Temple University. When he was 17, he put an image on a file-sharing network that resulted in his being charged in juvenile court with one count of disseminating child pornography.…

The Law School Admission Council recently reported that applications were heading toward a 30-year low, reflecting, as a "New York Times" article put it, "increased concern over soaring tuition, crushing student debt, and diminishing prospects of lucrative employment upon graduation." Since 2004 the number of law-school…

The admissions process is awash in numbers. Students accumulate grade-point averages and test scores. Colleges use statistical models to predict enrollment outcomes, and they tout their place in commercial rankings. In many ways, numbers simplify this complex enterprise. However, they have come to carry undue weight, says Martha Blevins Allman,…

There is no problem with colleges and universities trying to raise enrollment through encouraging student participation in athletics. However, the author questions the integrity of the recruiting and admissions process if institutions do not openly share their strategies with prospective students and parents. That includes being truthful regarding…

After nearly three years of planning, Ohio's higher-education officials are finalizing an ambitious program to grant college credit for some technical courses offered at the state's adult-education centers. The program, called the Career-Technical Credit Transfer, is the latest in a string of state efforts to more closely link work-force training…

The home-school movement, a once-marginalized segment of the educational community, is all grown up and going off to college. As colleges across the nation report increasing numbers of applications from home-schooled students, policies have been developed to evaluate these candidates. Translating years of independent study into something that…

The college admissions process teaches students how to express themselves during interviews, how to describe their best qualities in application essays. It may also make them wary of college marketing campaigns, and skeptical of being treated as a statistics, due to the large role played by standardized-test scores and grade-point averages. Such…

Describes some of the shortcuts taken by Chinese students who wish to study in the United States, including merely dishonest approaches like ghostwritten essays and actual criminal techniques like forgery and using stand-ins to take tests. Focuses on the New Oriental School, a private Chinese institution in Beijing that specializes in getting…

Guidelines developed by the Association of American Medical Colleges limit racial preferences for admissions and scholarships to students from only four designated minority groups, depriving students from other ethnicities from affirmative action eligibility. Discusses the implications for student diversity of changes in this policy. (SLD)

The Dream Project, which started in 2004, pairs students at the University of Washington with first-generation and low-income students in six Seattle high schools. The program teaches undergraduates at the university about higher-education policy at the same time that they help disadvantaged high-school students apply to college. The college…

Median salaries for 69 categories of second-level program administrators, including athletic coaches, are given for all institutions, public and private universities, all universities, all four-year colleges, and public two-year colleges. (MSE)