EMERGEing Educational Opportunities: The Effects of Social Capital on Selective College Outcomes

ABSTRACTThe number of undergraduates studying part‐time in four‐year colleges and universities has been steadily increasing over the past decade. The purpose of this project was to identify basic characteristics of Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) candidates planning to study part time, to examine the trends in part‐time enrollment in colleges requiring the SAT, to investigate the policies of those colleges regarding admissions requirements for part‐time students, and to determine whether those colleges are concerned about the validity of the SAT for part‐time students.This study used three different data sources to investigate these issues in order to provide an integrated picture of SAT usage among part‐time students. This picture may provide a basis upon which the College Board can project future SAT usage among these students and decide whether to encourage colleges to conduct SAT validity studies specifically for part‐time students.From Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS) data we determined that part‐time freshman enrollments in four‐year colleges increased 8.4 percent between 1976 and 1980. The greatest part‐time enrollments were in institutions with average SAT scores (verbal plus mathematics) ranging from 900 to 1000. Colleges with average scores between 800 and 900 had the greatest percentage of freshmen studying part time. The greatest rise in part‐time enrollment was among those colleges with the largest number of part‐time students, i.e., those in the 900–1000 score range. The greatest percentage increase in part‐time freshman enrollment was in the highly selective institutions, i.e., those with average scores over 1200, and in the least selective colleges, i.e., those with scores under 700.From SAT files we compared the profiles of students planning to study part time with those of students planning to study full time. We found that among part‐time students, there were a higher proportion of females and ethnic minorities. Part‐time candidates came from lower SES (socioeconomic status) families, fewer had been in academic programs in high school, and a greater percentage were uncertain about their educational goals. Their self‐estimates of academic abilities as well as their high school grades and SAT scores were lower than those for full‐time students.As a third data source, we conducted a telephone survey of 72 four‐year colleges having SAT score averages above 900. We found that some colleges did not distinguish between full‐time and part‐time students except for tuition fees and that most colleges had the same SAT admission requirements for part‐time as for full‐time matriculated students. Exceptions were generally made for older students. Another exception was when the school for part‐time students was under a different administration than the division for full‐time students. Generally this was the “night school.” Often under these circumstances no one applying to the “night school” was required to submit SAT scores even though some were recent high school graduates earning a degree.

The purpose of this study is to explore the journey of one large urban inner-city school district with a high population of Hispanics in South Texas as it worked to implement Positive Behavior Intervention and Support into primary (elementary) schools. We questioned, ‘How does a large urban inner-city school district serving a majority of Hispanics, and low income population, implement PBIS into its schools?’ First, we describe Positive Behavior Intervention and Support for the purpose of this article and provide a historical and demographic overview of the school district. Then, a thematic analysis of the processes, practices, and changes is included to describe what the school and central office administrators underwent to successfully implement Positive Behavior Intervention and Support into their school and include behaviorally challenged students and students of color in the general education program.

Dartmouth College, a highly selective Ivy League college with 4100 undergraduates, has a small but significant number of dyslexic/learning-disabled students, two-thirds of whom were identified through diagnostic testing at Dartmouth. Close advising relationships and intensive interviews with Dartmouth learning-disabled students reveal a profile of a particular category of learning-disabled college students. In spite of experiencing difficulty in a specific content area or with an information-processing task, learning-disabled Dartmouth students achieve well academically, socially, and extracurricularly, get high scores on timed SAT and IQ tests, and rely when necessary on accommodations, rather than remedial courses or specialized tutorial assistance.The authors surveyed selective colleges in 1986 and 1988 and found an increase in awareness and academic accommodations at other selective colleges during this two-year period. A 1987 dyslexic/learning-disabilities symposium hosted by Dartmouth is described, as are Dartmouth's services and accommodations. The authors provide a suggested list of services and resources for highly selective colleges.

Prior research finds that low‐income students are less likely to apply to and enroll in four‐year colleges or more selective colleges, even after controlling for academic preparation and other background characteristics. The College Board sought to reduce barriers in the college application process through a targeted campaign of brochures and e‐mails. These materials were sent to students two to three times between the end of eleventh grade and the middle of twelfth grade, and aimed to provide an impetus to start the college search process, minimize the costs of aggregating data, and encourage a broader college application portfolio. Some students were offered additional encouragements, such as text message reminders or college application fee waivers. In a randomized control trial with 785,000 low‐ and middle‐income students in the top 50 percent of the PSAT and SAT distributions, we find no changes in college enrollment patterns.

While previous research has focused on the continuing educational disparities between the growing Latinx population and other racial/ethnic groups, this study focuses on the importance of the assets and enrichment opportunities that determine variability in Latinx student college access. Using the nationally representative 2009–2016 High School Longitudinal Study data, the authors employed multivariate analyses to study the effects of five asset bundles considered student endowments, including indicators of college readiness, on the number of college applications and the selectivity of the institution Latinx students decided to attend. The results indicate that differences in college readiness (high school GPA, AP credits) and material resources (Pell grants, student belief in parents’ ability to afford selective colleges) are the main predictors of not only being strategic in the college application process but also result in more selective college enrollment where students’ chances of college completion are higher. Asset bundles, however, do not completely explain social identity disparities based on gender and English language learner status. Further research is needed to advance asset-based models for Latinx students and the social mobility of students from low-income backgrounds and other social identities.

With most adolescents now aspiring to graduate from college, assisting students in making the transition has become a key institutional function of high schools. Information about the application process is especially important for college entrance as admissions criteria are localized. Gaining access to information is one of the most important benefits of social capital. This study asks whether high schools with more connections to colleges are more successful in helping their students gain admission to college and, in particular, to selective four-year colleges. This study investigates the effects of having connections to colleges at a high school on students' college entry. This study also shows that actions taken by individual families bring about a contextual effect of a high school on the college selectivity that students attended in the same high school. These effects also mediate the relationship between school socioeconomic composition and enrollment in selective colleges.

Disparities in college access for underrepresented urban students are one of the most urgent educational problems of America’s education system. In response to growing national concern, this longitudinal study investigated how school leaders worked collaboratively with key stakeholders to implement research-supported student services in order to improve college access for underrepresented urban students. The quantitative investigation showed that when educational leaders and key stakeholders worked collaboratively to deliver comprehensive student services, urban students in a high-poverty school district experienced measurable benefits in terms of their college enrolment. This study may be of particular value to policymakers, school leaders, and educators concerned with the low college access rates of students in urban schools, as well as to those who are seeking to understand what works betterto prepare urban students for post-secondary education.

African American females make up two-thirds of African American postsecondary enrollments and 60% of all African Americans with at least a bachelor's degree. How do brothers and sisters with shared experiences have such markedly different outcomes? I find that African American females are more likely than African American males to apply to college, to attend college, and to attend two-year colleges, four-year colleges, and selective colleges. Students' backgrounds, academic achievement, and Catholic school attendance explains the differences in the type of colleges African American females and males attend, but fail to explain differences in college application and attendance rates.

FAIRFAX County, Virginia, where I live, is a large (160,000 students), high-achieving district. Within Fairfax County, a magnet school, the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, educates about 1,600 of the brightest of the county's bright (and a few exceptional students from neighboring districts). At TJ, virtually everyone takes the SAT, and in 2001 the school's average was 725 on the verbal and 745 on the math. For Fairfax County as a whole, the numbers were 540 and 553 respectively; for the nation, 506 and 514. So TJ's students, who score collectively more than two standard deviations above the norm, should be set as as getting into the colleges and universities of their choice, right? Maybe not, according to Paul Attewell of the City University of New York, writing in the October 2001 issue of the Sociology of Education. Attewell points out that parents are concerned (some might say obsessed) with getting their children into prestigious colleges. They try to maximize their children's chances by moving into areas perceived to have superior by sending their children to prep schools, or by sending them to public such as Bronx Science, Boston Latin, Lowell High School in San Francisco, or the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia. Sometimes the effort backfires. Attewell argues three points: 1. The reputation of a star school becomes tied to the attainments of its academically strongest students, but [that reputation] may be bought at the cost of reduced opportunities for the talented graduates who are below the top. 2. Attempts to game or manipulate the selective college entrance system have led to modifications in the grading systems that are used by many star high schools that further distance their top students from all the other students. 3. In some star this effort has led to changes in curriculum that lower the involvement of highly talented students in rigorous courses, especially in math and science and in Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Attewell finds that the SAT scores of students admitted to selective colleges from star schools are substantially higher than the average SAT scores for those colleges. However, students from star schools who are rejected by selective colleges had SAT scores that were far higher than the average of students who were admitted from other high schools. The principal culprit here is not the students' SAT scores or their grade-point averages (GPAs). It is class rank. I have pointed out repeatedly in connection with international comparisons that small differences in scores can yield large differences in ranks among countries. That is because many countries have similar scores. Forcing ranks onto a set of similar scores creates artificially large differences among nations. Similarly, at a school, ranking students can make a student with an SAT math score of 770 look much more able than a student who has an SAT math score of 750. In recent years, star schools have tried a variety of tactics to deny admissions officers access to class ranks. Some report only in terms of deciles. Colleges then get around this by assigning pseudoranks at the median of a decile. Thus a student from a class of 400 who is in the first decile is assigned a class rank of 20 (in a class of 400, the first 40 ranks are taken by the top decile). This puts anyone whose class rank is actually above 20 at a disadvantage. Some schools stopped reporting ranks altogether. Colleges then calculated pseudoranks using the distribution of GPAs that high schools report in the they send to college admissions offices. Some schools stopped sending fact sheets that included frequency distributions of grades, which led admissions officers to think the schools were hiding something. …

Commentaries and replies on a given article, especially those appearing in the pages of an academic journal like Social Forces, cut to the very heart of intellectual exchange and area-specific development in the field. Such conversations and any debates embedded within them also expose analytic decision-making and potentially promising conceptual and empirical developments to current and future scholars. For these reasons, we welcome and appreciate the comments of Eric Grodsky and Sigal Alon on our article Shadow Education, American Style: Test Preparation, the SAT and College Enrollment. Both provide insightful arguments and extensions that, in conjunction with our reply, should be of broad interest to stratification and scholars. Our article builds on education, a concept most often utilized in the comparative literature. We extend its theoretical utility to the U.S. case, with a substantive and empirical focus on college test preparation. Our analyses show that background inequalities in family income and parental shape the likelihood that students engage in various forms of SAT preparation, and that these education activities have important implications for both test performance and selective college enrollment. For example, students from the most advantaged families are significantly more likely to enroll in private courses, such as those offered by Princeton Review and Kaplan -a strategy that corresponds to significant SAT score gains. Higher SAT scores, in turn, increase the chances of getting into the nations most selective colleges and universities. In their comments, Eric Grodsky takes issue with several important theoretical and methodological aspects of our article and Sigal Alon highlights key processes pertaining to race/ethnicity. Grodsky's and Alon's emphases on theoretical conception, measurement and process, when taken together, offer fertile ground for contemplation and future research. We respond accordingly here. Beginning with theoretical issues, we restate and stand by our definition of shadow relative to the alternative, narrower definition that Grodsky prefers. Our measurement and modeling strategy follows directly from our theoretical discussion and captures -more effectively than Grodsky's dichotomous approach -the interconnected and overlapping nature of student test preparation. We then turn to Alon's response and analyses, which elaborate on our results in important ways with respect to racial/ethnic minorities and suggest differential processes in the course

Selective college admissions are fundamentally a question of tradeoffs: Given capacity, admitting one student means rejecting another. Research to date has generally estimated average effects of college selectivity, and has been unable to distinguish between the effects on students gaining access and on those losing access under alternative admissions policies. We use the introduction of the Top Ten Percent rule and administrative data from the State of Texas to estimate the effect of access to a selective college on student graduation and earnings outcomes. We estimate separate effects on two groups of students. The first--highly ranked students at schools which previously sent few students to the flagship university--gain access due to the policy; the second--students outside the top tier at traditional “feeder” high schools--tend to lose access. We find that students in the first group see increases in college enrollment and graduation with some evidence of positive earnings gains 7-9 years after college. In contrast, students in the second group attend less selective colleges but do not see declines in overall college enrollment, graduation, or earnings. The Top Ten Percent rule, introduced for equity reasons, thus also seems to have improved efficiency.

Nobel Laureates and Their Medical Schools: Who Selected Whom?

Undermatching, or students attending less selective colleges than they are academically qualified to attend, is seen as a contributing factor to the lagging college completion rate of low-income and first-generation college students. Addressing the mismatch has been mainly limited to the individual level. Through analysis of interview and longitudinal school administrative data with aspiring first-generation college low-income Latinx youth who started preparing to attend college in middle school, we find that the need to work, which students started doing in high school, was a major factor in students’ undermatching. We show how employment collides with the structure of colleges as racialized organizations (Ray, 2019), especially matching colleges with high graduation rates. Selective colleges did not provide the support students needed to address their financial situations, and students attending schools to which they undermatched required more assistance navigating work and schools to stop them from dropping out. We also discuss program and policy solutions to address the low college completion rates of Latinx first-generation college students more fully as well as how to better support their need to work.

The effects of student coaching in preparation for the College Board Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) on the predictive validity of this test for freshman year performance were studied using data on 1985 freshman year students from four colleges. After the validity of the SAT was estimated for each school, a given proportion of students was picked, and a given magnitude of score gains was added to the observed SAT verbal and mathematics scores. The validity of the new SAT scores was then estimated and compared to the observed validity measures. Each simulation provides an estimate of the change in velidity resulting from a hypothetical coaching effect. Sample sizes from the 4 colleges were: (1) 996 students from a highly selective school; (2) 1,346 from a moderately selective school; (3) 386 from a small, less selective school; and (4) 203 from a small religiously affiliated college. Results indicated that the validity indicators of the SAT in highly selective colleges are more contaminated by coaching effects than in less selective colleges. Results also indicate that changes in the levels of coaching do not seem large enough to account for the observed decline in the validity of the SAT over the past 10 years. Appendix A provides a detailed discussion of the second college, and Appendix B describes decrements in multiple partial correlation coefficients. (Contains 5 figures, 14 tables, and 19 references.) (SLD)

How high-school seniors become college students is a result of two separate but interacting processes. Applicants apply to and enroll in college at the encouragement of family, friends, teachers, counselors, advertising materials, and other sources [28]. Colleges conduct marketing assessments, establish entrance standards, select, and enroll students [20]. The demographics of high-school graduates would seem to indicate a buyer's market, yet although college access is easier now than twenty years ago, it is harder to get into what some people consider the college because of increased competition and standards [39]. For upper-middle-class students who view college as a pivotal career investment, choosing the right college has become pressure-filled. An industry has grown up to help college-bound students: guidebooks and software for SAT coaching; private counselors; consortia offering paid trips for high-school counselors to obscure college campuses; and slick magazines selling private college educations marketed to students stratified by SAT scores and socioeconomic status. College has become a complex, high-stakes game where insider information is difficult to come by and where the guidance counselor caseloads are staggering. Some parents consider their children's college prospects when choosing preschools [23], and practitioners bemoan the extraordinary amounts of time and money that students spend in packaging [16]. In this article I am defining all aspects of the interinstitutional transition of an individual from high school to college as the of college [4]. I examine changes in this in the 1980s and 1990s and the way in which nonschool-based admission assistance services have developed and expanded. I describe and label these nonschool-based services admissions management. I offer this concept as an individual-level counterpart to the idea of enrollment management that has become prevalent in the literature on higher education. Admissions management is a constellation of behaviors which include buying services to help mostly high-SES, college-bound students maximize their college prospects, package themselves, and anchor themselves emotionally as they navigate the troubled waters of college admissions. I also describe the social construction of a new type of person--a college applicant--who in making the high school to college transition needs professional help, specifically, the assistance of a private, independent educational consultant. I argue that due to increased marketing on the part of college officials, diminished high-school guidance operations, and heightened competition for college seats upper-middle-class students have generated new practices which, for them, already appear normative, are taken for granted, and are virtually the only reasonable way to choose a college. Some college aspirants, fearful of being frozen out of certain types of colleges thought to be their birthright, are mobilizing economic capital in an effort to enhance their cultural capital and thereby maximize their socioeconomic advantages. As a specific example, I will discuss the role and function of these private counselors, which I will show to be (1) offering specialized knowledge and assistance, (2) providing private uninterrupted time with a counseling professional, (3) organizing and managing the college choice process, and (4) cooling out unreasonable aspirations with viable, personalized alternatives. I will also demonstrate the advantages of using a analysis. Examining the historic changes in the structural and organizational contours of the college and viewing the interinstitutional transition from high school to college as a field allows for greater analytic purchase by simultaneously viewing changes in high schools, colleges, the entrepreneurial sectors, and individuals' college choice actions. …