A survey of 303 potential college students and their parents found that high price and low price institutions are evaluated higher on quality attributes than are moderately priced institutions. Further, discounts (such as financial aid) were found to have little effect on the attendance decision. Implications for the pricing strategies used by…

Compared the importance ratings of various college choice criteria by 395 college-bound high school seniors and their parents. Identified significant student/parent and student gender differences. Safety and academic issues were more important to females than males. Students identified social life, friends attending, and athletic programs as more…

The Scholastic Assessment Tests (SAT) measures students' general learned abilities, but student test performance is influenced as much by family environment as it is by formal education. Many colleges use SAT scores in admissions decisions. Students would be far better served if there was a concentration on other ways of predicting success in…

Discusses the increasing pressures on educators from parents who are obsessively concerned with their children's high school grades, application to, and acceptance by desired institutions of higher education and the resulting student anxiety and cynicism on school and college campuses. Urges college admissions officers to focus on the "best fit"…

Discusses policy issues pertaining to minority transfer students and presents a conceptual model for enhancing and facilitating minority transfers. Asserts that four-year institutions must assess the level of cultural competence that faculty and staff members have for effectively interacting with minority students, and that universities must…

This article presents the results of a spring 2004 survey of state higher education agency officials on the current status of the transferability of two-year degree occupational programs, designated as the AAS degree in most states. Included in the discussion is the issue of transferable general education in these degree programs, the development…

Building stronger networks for transfer student success involves both inter-institutional and intra-institutional collaboration. This article explores successful efforts of the Office of Transfer Services at the University of Central Florida to address three critical components of transfer student success: 1) preparation, which involves the…

Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and American College Program (ACT) scores are the main determinants of college entrance in the USA. It is widely assumed that these tests are predictive of success both during college and in later life, but such views are incorrect. Another widely-held view, held by many educators, is that the SAT and ACT are…

Students compulsorily should go to college in order to succeed in society as an adult, but the students do not get the correct information about what is required to succeed in higher education. The knowledge and skills that are taught in high schools are different from college entrance and placement requirements.

Students in institutions of higher education are becoming more "consumer oriented" than ever before. As a result, the turnover rate is increasing-students are leaving universities almost as fast as new students are enrolled. This is both costly and inefficient. Major efforts are underway in all areas of traditional for-profit institutions to…

This study reports how an institutional research office at a large public research university has taken the lead to call attention to retention problems, describe attrition/retention predictors, and influence policy. Building on existing retention theories and previous institutional research studies, the institutional research office began…

There is this little secret college-bound and first-year college students outwardly deny: They are scared sick about going off to college. In the authors' interviews with 175 college students throughout the United States for "Survival Secrets of College Students" (Barron's, 2007) students talked--sometimes painfully--about what they wished they…

This article is based on the finding that for many students, high school is a place for young people's life and living together, a place for subjectivisation. The process of subjectivisation is approached through a discussion that questions conceptions of students as strategists of their school trajectory, as well as conceptions of youth life as…

Drawing on data from a charter school case study, the author shares student and staff reflections on a college preparatory model for students of color. Through analyses of staff interview and student focus group transcripts, the author highlights key features of the school culture that helped students of color make their transition to college. The…

Born out of one legal battle over affirmative action, the Texas college-admissions policy known as the "top 10 percent plan" is now at the center of another. The University of Texas at Austin is being challenged in U.S. District Court over its 2004 decision to return to using race-conscious admissions criteria after years without them.…