This quantitative study of one doctoral department at a regional, state-supported university located in the Southeastern United States used descriptive, parametric, and non-parametric methods to determine the relationships between gender and each of the academic or graduation factors. Graduation rates were analyzed for doctoral students admitted…

In this article, the author discusses the mechanisms of isomorphism through three examples of organizational actions for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in doctoral education: (1) eliminating Graduate Record Examination (GRE) requirements; (2) adopting bridge programs; and (3) reforming doctoral qualifying exams. Although these actions were…

Purpose: Higher education, as a field of study, is one of the few programmatic areas that offer two doctoral degrees: The Doctor of Education (EdD) and the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). In the United States, the two degrees are often conflated. Conversations, to this point, have done more to contribute to the theoretical debate than to operationally…

We introduce a model of the admissions process based upon standard agency theory and explore its implications with economics PhD admissions data from 2013-2019. We show that a subjective score that aggregates subjective ratings and recommendation letter features plays a more important role in determining admissions than an objective score based…

The growing concern of doctoral student persistence has increased exponentially in higher education over the past decade. The body of research presented in this dissertation examines the complex phenomenon of persistence and possible pathways to addressing the dilemma of deteriorating academic persistence for doctoral students. It explores and…

Consideration of socioemotional skills in admissions potentially can increase representation of racial and ethnic minorities and women in graduate and professional education as well as identify candidates more likely to succeed in graduate and professional school. Research on one such assessment, the ETS Personal Potential Index (PPI), showed that…

American Institutes for Research (AIR) conducted a three-year exploratory case study of four two-year graduate-level bridge programs designed to increase the number of historically underrepresented groups of individuals earning PhDs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This article presents findings from one component of a…

There has been little work done in exploring the variations in admissions practices between different types of physics graduate programs. In this paper, we compared admissions practices in master's programs to a parallel data set collected from doctoral departments to understand the relative importance of particular admission criteria and looked…

A significant amount of research has been documented on both attrition and retention of doctoral students. The attrition of doctoral students is a loss to society and academia when the prospective scholar does not complete the rigors of the dissertation journey. The time and money invested by the graduate students and the university is of no true…

The United States continues to be a top destination for international students pursuing an advanced degree. Some information about the characteristics of international students applying to graduate programs in the United States is available, but little is known about how these characteristics are related to test taker performance on graduate…

This article discussed the accuracy of nationally normed entrance examinations such as the Millers Analogy Test and the Graduate Record Examination at predicting graduate student academic success in Master's and Doctoral programs. Academic success was defined as maintaining the required minimum or higher graduate program grade point average and…

Despite limiting access to applicants from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, the practice of using hard or soft Graduate Record Examination (GRE) cutoff scores in physics graduate program admissions is still a popular method for reducing the pool of applicants. The present study considers whether the undergraduate institutions of…

Although many summer undergraduate research programs made the decision to delay, cancel, or suspend their summer experiences in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Morehouse College McNair Scholars Program instead offered a completely virtual summer research experience to 14 Scholars with faculty-led remote research. The program…

Besides traditional admissions criteria, research-intensive social work PhD programs may rely on personal interviews and curriculum vitae or resumes to gauge prior research experience to determine applicants' fit for the research-related productivity expected in their programs. Case record review of social work PhD candidates (n=56) entering the…

The purpose of this research was to examine whether decisions made at one stage of strategic and graduate enrollment management, the admission phase, depend on both applicant and faculty characteristics. Faculty participants (N=62) were randomly assigned to read one of four vignettes of a prospective applicant to their doctoral program. They then…