COLLEGE ADMISSIONS

Applying for admission to colleges and universities has evolved from a relatively straightforward process to a complex rite of passage that causes anxiety for many high school students. Increased media attention about college admissions during the late 1980s and 1990s facilitated the growth of a booming college admissions industry. Commercial test-preparation courses, independent counselors, annual college rankings by news magazines, and a wide range of guidebooks are now a routine part of the college admissions landscape.

Despite this plethora of advice on how to "beat" the admissions process, institutions of higher education vary greatly in their selectivity. Many community colleges, for example, have an open-access policy and admit any applicant with a high school diploma or its equivalent. On the other hand, the most competitive universities admit as few as 10 to 20 percent of their applicants.

Colleges establish enrollment goals based on considerations such as tuition revenue projections, financial aid budgets, housing availability, and the number of currently enrolled students. Since many applicants apply to more than one institution, not every offer of admission that a college extends will result in a student enrolling there. Colleges therefore admit more students than they hope to enroll. The percentage of students who accept an institution's offer of admission is known as a college's yield rate. Because this number is difficult to predict from year to year, some institutions maintain a wait list for applicants. If a college has not reached its target enrollment after regularly admitted applicants accept or decline their offers of admission, it may admit students on its wait list.

The Admissions Process

The admissions process is based on the submission of written applications and supporting credentials. In the late 1990s many colleges began offering the option of online applications, available through institutions' websites or through commercial third parties. While most students use application forms specific to a particular institution, a form called the Common Application reduces the volume of paperwork for students applying to participating institutions. Most institutions require an application fee, although students with severe financial hardships sometimes obtain fee waivers with the support of their guidance counselors.

Applications usually require submission of an official high school transcript, an official college transcript if the student has completed previous college coursework, a guidance counselor recommendation, teacher recommendations, and official results from either the SAT I or the ACT Assessment. Some selective colleges require the SAT II subject tests, which they sometimes use for placement purposes. In addition, many applications require one or more essays, and some colleges require interviews with admissions staff, alumni, or current students. Additional information may be required for transfer or international students.

Application Options

Many institutions have a strict admissions timetable to which applicants must adhere. Application deadlines can range from early fall of the senior year in high school to the summer before desired enrollment. The following are among colleges' most common application options, and an institution may offer one or more of these:

• Regular decision . Deadlines for submitting applications and supporting credentials for fall semester admission typically fall between December and March. Most institutions that follow this traditional schedule mail admissions decisions in late March or early April and ask students to notify them of their enrollment decisions by May 1.
• Rolling admissions . Some colleges offer a rolling admissions process, in which applications are reviewed and evaluated as they are received. These institutions notify students of their admissions status as decisions are made.
• Early action . Some colleges have a fall application deadline for students who wish to receive notification of their admissions status in December or January. Colleges may admit or deny these applicants, or they may opt to reconsider them under the regular decision process. Receiving an early offer of admission can be a relief for students, and students who are denied admission usually still have time to apply to other colleges. Some institutions ask that applicants apply for early action at only one college, while others do not have this restriction.
• Early decision . This process differs from early action in that students agree to attend the institution if offered admission. In addition, they must withdraw their applications from all other institutions if admitted. As students may apply to only one institution using this option, it is appropriate only for students who are certain about their first-choice college. In some cases, applying for early decision can have ramifications for financial aid.

Counselors generally recommend the early action and early decision options only for students with strong academic records through the junior year. Weaker applicants may improve their applications by retaking a standardized test or improving their grades during the fall of their senior year.

Some variations exist in the above timetable. In special cases, for example, highly qualified students may be permitted to enroll after their junior year in high school. Some colleges will agree to defer an offer of admission for students who wish to work or travel for a year between high school and college. Accepting a position on a college's wait list may prolong the college admissions process well into the summer before desired enrollment. Some institutions may admit a student with provisions (e.g., asking that he or she take a summer remedial skills course prior to being fully admitted to the college).

Offers of admission to high school seniors usually include the stipulation that the student must maintain satisfactory academic performance. Colleges may revoke offers of admission to students whose grades decline significantly during their second semester.

Application review procedures vary widely by institution. Some colleges have admissions officers independently rate applications, while others utilize committees comprising admissions personnel, faculty, or current students. Institutions are legally bound to adhere to their publicized admissions standards, honor their admissions decisions, and refrain from unjustifiably discriminating on the basis of race, sex, age, disability, or citizenship. At the end of the twentieth century, however, the legality of affirmative action, one of the most controversial practices in college admissions, began to be challenged in the courts.

Weight of Credentials

No particular set of credentials guarantees admission to the most selective institutions, as these colleges receive many more qualified applicants than they are able to admit. The process is subjective, and often several individuals will review each application.

Colleges usually identify the high school transcript as the most important credential. They consider rigor of coursework, grade point average (GPA), and sometimes class rank. Institutions typically publish their minimum expectations for applicants' high school curriculum. In evaluating the transcript, most colleges highly regard honors, Advanced Placement (AP), and International Baccalaureate (IB) courses. Some colleges look primarily at the number of years a student has studied each subject (e.g., three years of foreign language); others look to see that a certain course level has been attained (e.g., completion of Algebra II). Many colleges view applicants' coursework in the context of what their high schools offer. Most high schools send colleges a profile that includes information about grading practices, curriculum, extracurricular opportunities, and the socioeconomic environment of the school. This gives admissions officers a way to judge the work of students at high schools with which they are unfamiliar. Institutions vary as to whether they will consider GPAs and class ranks that are weighted for honors, AP, or IB courses; some re-calculate GPAs to be consistent across applications. Likewise, institutions differ as to whether they include nonacademic courses, such as physical education or fine arts, as part of the applicant's GPA.

Standardized tests, especially the SAT and ACT Assessment, continue to play an important role in the admissions process at most colleges, despite concerns about the differential performance of disadvantaged students on these tests. Some institutions, especially public universities, use admissions formulas that combine standardized test scores and grade point average. Most institutions, however, consider standardized tests as only one aspect of a student's application. Standardized tests provide a uniform yardstick against which all applicants are measured–unlike grades, which may reflect differences in high schools' academic rigor.

Institutions look to counselor and teacher recommendations to better understand an applicant. While an outstanding counselor recommendation can hold great weight with an admissions committee, admissions officers recognize that guidance counselors may not know each individual applicant well. Teacher recommendations help with this situation, as teachers tend to have more face-to-face contact with individual students. Recommendations can help colleges to understand the challenges that applicants have faced and the extent to which students have contributed to their high school communities.

Good essays also help admissions officers better understand applicants or see a side of the applicant not evident in the rest of the application. Admissions officers judge essays with an eye toward content and quality of writing. Colleges expect essays to be the applicant's own work.

Applications usually include space for students to list their extracurricular activities. Some institutions allow applicants to submit videos, slides, or other materials that document special talents in areas such as sports or the arts, and many colleges give special consideration to applicants with extraordinary talents.

See also: Advanced Placement Courses/Exams; College Admissions Tests; College Financial Aid; College Recruitment Practices; College Search and Selection.

bibliography

Guernsey, Lisa. 1998. "Admissions in Cyberspace: Web Sites Bring Complications for Colleges." Chronicle of Higher Education October 9:A27.

HernÁndez, Michele A. 1997. A Is for Admission: The Insider's Guide to Getting into the Ivy League and Other Top Colleges. New York: Warner Books.

Hoover, Eric. 2002. "New Attacks of Early Decision." Chronical of Higher Education January 11:A45.

Hossler, Don. 1984. Enrollment Management: An Integrated Approach. New York: College Entrance Examination Board.

Kaplan, William A., and Lee, Barbara A. 1997. "Admissions." In A Legal Guide for Student Affairs Professionals, ed. William A. Kaplan and Barbara A. Lee. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

McDonough, Patricia M. 1997. Choosing Colleges: How Social Class and Schools Structure Opportunity. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Skrentny, John D. 2001. "Affirmative Action and New Demographic Realities." Chronicle of Higher Education February 16:B7.

internet resources

ACT Assessment. 2002. <www.act.org/aap>

College Board. 2002. <www.collegeboard.com>

Common Application. 2002. <www.commonapp.org>

National Association for College Admission Counseling. 2002. <www.nacac.com>

Kathryn A. Balink

ADVANCED PLACEMENT COURSES/EXAMS

Development of the Advanced Placement program came about because of a perceived need to provide motivated high school students with an opportunity to earn college credit. In 1954 the Educational Testing Service (ETS) was given a contract to develop exams in a group of experimental high schools and to compare the results of the high school students' scores on the exams to those of freshmen in twelve colleges. The resulting favorable comparison gave impetus to an expansion of efforts to further develop additional courses and examinations across the disciplines; this evolved into a program of the College Entrance Examination Board (College Board), with technical aspects of test administration and scoring handled by ETS. Advanced Placement courses are designed to mirror the introductory level college courses offered in the major discipline areas.

The most frequently cited reason for enrollment in AP courses has been the greater rigor and challenge of AP courses compared to traditional high school offerings. Successful candidates also gain the advantage of being allowed to take more advanced courses at the beginning of their college careers and to select more elective courses.

AP courses and examinations, which were initially developed for the highest-achieving 5 percent of high school seniors, were widely available to juniors and seniors (10 to 20 percent of such students in many schools) by the beginning of the twenty-first century, and AP courses in calculus and physics were being taken via computer by students as young as those in eighth grade. In 2000, 768,586 students from 13,253 schools (out of approximately 22,000 high schools nationwide) took 1,272,317 exams. The students had the option of submitting their scores to 3,070 colleges.

Students are not required by the College Board to take an exam if enrolled in an Advanced Placement course. About one-third of students enrolled in the courses take the exam. But individual schools may, and sometimes do, require enrolled students to take the exam. Students may also elect to take an AP exam without enrolling in the course in high school. There is no predetermined number or pattern of courses or exams students must take during their high school careers. Not all high schools offer Advanced Placement courses and some offer only one or two courses. Table 1 lists the Advanced Placement courses and examinations available in 2002.

In addition to creating the examinations used to assess students' mastery of college-level subject matter, the College Board provides schools with course

TABLE 1

syllabi, including topical outlines and recommended texts. Examinations are developed in consultation with college faculty and high school teachers who are experienced in Advanced Placement teaching.

Grading of AP examinations is done independently by trained examiners. Exam results are assigned a rating with the College Board between 1 and5. A 3 means the student is qualified to earn college credit and/or advanced placement in "virtually all four year colleges and universities, including the most selective." A 5 is deemed "extremely well qualified." The American Council on Education has also recommended, as a general rule, that colleges and universities award credit for grades of 3 or better on AP examinations. The College Board, however, does not assign college credits. Credits are assigned according to the policy of the college or university to which the student applies for credit. At a particular college, the required score for credit and/or advanced standing is determined by the faculty of that college and may vary from examination to examination. William Lichten reported in 2000 that even though two-thirds of test takers earn a score of 3 or higher, only 49 percent receive college credit based on Advanced Placement exam scores. Lichten further noted that while a majority of colleges still award credit for scores of 3 or higher, many highly selective colleges and universities require at least a 4, and there is an increased tendency for institutions of higher education to require higher scores in some areas (e.g., English literature, foreign language) than in others. Some colleges do not accept credit for advanced placement courses or success on the exam at all, rejecting the assertion that the AP and college courses are equivalent. Information on the level of success required for earning college credit at a specific college or university based on the results of a particular AP exam is provided by the College Board at its website.

There is no fee for enrolling in Advanced Placement courses, but students must pay a fee to take the examination. Twenty-six states use state funds to support AP programs either through subsidizing exam fees, subsidizing the costs of teacher training, providing funds for materials and supplies for AP courses, offering incentives for providing AP courses or hosting training sessions, encouraging universities to accept AP credit, and encouraging the offering of professional development opportunities. Eighteen of these states provide direct assistance to students by paying for exam fees. The federal government has also provided funds to pay either partial or full examination fees for minority and low-income students, and in some cases individual school systems have taken the initiative to pay for the examination.

According to the College Board, college admissions personnel view AP courses as one indicator of future success at the college level. Participation in AP courses, therefore, is considered an advantage to a student who wishes to attend a highly selective college. The importance of AP programs in the college admissions process has even been the basis underlying a lawsuit filed in 1999 in California claiming bias because fewer Advanced Placement programs are offered in schools with higher percentages of minority and low-income students.

See also: Curriculum, School, subentry on Over-view; Secondary Education, subentry on Current Trends; Standards for Student Learning.

bibliography

College Entrance Examination Board and Educational Testing Service. 1999. Facts about the Advanced Placement Program, 2000. New York: College Entrance Examination Board and Educational Testing Service.

Ravalglia, Raymond; DEBarros, J. Acacio; and Suppes, Patrick. 1995. "Computer-Based Instruction Brings Advanced-Placement Physics to Gifted Students." Computers in Physics 9:380–386.

Rothchild, Eric. 1995. "Aspiration, Performance, Reward: The Advanced Placement Program at Forty." College Board Review 176–177:24–32.

Sindelar, Nancy W. 1988. "English Curriculum and Higher Education." Journal of College Admissions (summer):2–5.

internet resources

College Board. 2001. "AP Central." < http://apcentral.collegeboard.com >.

Lichten, William. 2000. "Whither Advanced Placement?" Education Policy Analysis Archives 8 (29). < www.epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v8n29.html>.

Viadero, Deborah. 2001. "AP Program Assumes Larger Role." Education Week < www.edweek.org/ew/ewstory.cfm?/slug=32ap.h20>.

Carolyn M. Callahan

COLLEGE ADMISSIONS TESTS

The ACT Assessment and SAT are the most popular college entrance tests administered in the United States.

The ACT

The ACT Assessment, formerly called the American College Test, is a standardized examination required by many colleges and universities in the United States for admission to their undergraduate degree programs. The test was developed in 1959 to measure the academic abilities of prospective college students and provided an alternative to the SAT. The ACT is a two-hour and fifty-five-minute multiple-choice exam that measures English, mathematics, reading, and science reasoning skills. Students are also required to complete two questionnaires that cover the courses they have taken, their grades and activities, and a standardized interest inventory. The test battery includes four parts: (1) a 45-minute, 75-item English test; (2) a 60-minute, 60-item mathematics test; (3) a 35-minute, 40-item reading test; and (4) a 35-minute, 40-item science reasoning test. Each of the tests is scored on a scale from one to thirty-six; the four scores are combined into a composite score of one to thirty-six. Most students who take the test score within the range of seventeen to twenty-three.

Most students take the ACT during the spring of their junior year or at the beginning of their senior year. Students are allowed to take the test more than once, and most colleges and universities count the highest score reported. Students may designate the colleges and universities to which their scores should be reported.

The SAT

The SAT, formerly called the Scholastic Aptitude Test and later the Scholastic Assessment Test, is an examination that is required by some of the higher education institutions within the United States for admission to their undergraduate degree programs. The SAT dates to the early 1900s when Ivy League schools formed the College Entrance Examination Board (College Board). The purpose of the board was to simplify the application process for students who were required to take a different entrance exam for each college they applied to. The SAT was designed as a standardized entrance exam for the College Board that required students to write out answers and compose essays.

In the early 1990s the test was redesigned to measure verbal and mathematical reasoning through multiple-choice questions. The revised SAT includes two separate divisions of the exam: the SAT I, which is a general test of verbal and math ability, and the SAT II, which tests knowledge in specialized subjects chosen by the student. The verbal and math portion of the test devotes seventy-five minutes to the verbal section and sixty minutes to the mathematics section. The verbal portion comprises three kinds of questions, as noted by Alexandra Beatty and colleagues in 1998: (1) analogy questions, which assess "knowledge of the meaning of words," ability to see a relationship in a pair of words, and the ability to recognize a similar or parallel relationship; (2) sentence completion questions, which assess "knowledge of the meaning of words" and "ability to understand how the different parts of a sentence fit logically together"; and (3) critical reading questions, which assess "ability to read and think carefully about several reading passages" (p. 18).

The mathematics section of the test assesses how well the students understand mathematics, how well they can apply what is known to new situations, and how well they are able to use the knowledge they have acquired to solve difficult mathematical problems. Each of the sections generates a score on a scale of 200 to 800, with the combined scores ranging from 400 to 1,600. Nationwide, average scores on both the verbal and math sections of the test are approximately 500.

Test Scores and Their Relationship to Admissions Selectivity

There is some misunderstanding pertaining to the validity and importance of college entrance test scores. While test scores weigh heavily in admissions decisions, they are not the only variable that is considered in admitting a student to even the most selective institution of higher learning. Most colleges and universities use the test scores as a means of assessing a candidate for admission. Other criteria included in this assessment are the high school grade point average (GPA), rank in class, record of extracurricular and service activities, letters of recommendation, applicant's essay, evidence of persistence, and interviews, which assist the college or university in determining the applicant's maturity, determination, personality, and character. High school GPAs are considered a "soft" measure because grading standards range as widely as they do in college. Nevertheless, GPAs are considered more important than test scores because they are inclusive of several years of performance, not just a few hours of testing.

The combination of high school GPAs and ACT or SAT test scores is very useful in determining admissions because it provides different kinds of information about the academic performance of students. Test scores and GPAs provide reliable and efficient information that is very useful to many admissions counselors. Test scores were not designed, however, to be a comprehensive approach to all factors that influence success in college. Admissions personnel rely as much on high school GPAs or class rank as they do on test scores, and the predictor of college success is higher for both numbers together than for either one alone.

The ACT and the SAT can be very helpful in assisting colleges in admissions selectivity when there are more applicants than the college can accept. The colleges believe that the tests are one excellent means of helping them to make a better selection of the candidates who apply. For instance, colleges that specialize in the liberal arts and humanities would seek students with higher scores in verbal aptitude and lower scores in mathematics aptitude, whereas engineering colleges would seek students with high scores in mathematics aptitude and lower scores in verbal aptitude.

Over the years, college entrance tests have improved considerably. Colleges and universities have determined that students who do well on the tests have the ability to succeed in college. These tests, however, are indicators only of a student's ability to do college work; they cannot measure perseverance and interest in learning.

See also: College Admissions; College Entrance Examination Board, The; College Financial Aid; College Search and Selection.

bibliography

National Research Council. Steering Committee for the Workshop on Higher Education Admissions. 1998. Myths and Tradeoffs: The Role of Tests in Undergraduate Admissions, ed. Alexandra Beatty, M.R.C. Greenwood, and Robert L. Linn. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Owen, David. 1999. None of the Above: The Truth behind the SATs, revised edition. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Wechsler, Louis K.; Blum, Martin; and Friedman, Sidney. 1967. College Entrance Examinations. New York: Barnes and Noble.

Susan West

high school • n. a school that typically comprises grades 9 through 12, attended after primary school or middle school. DERIVATIVES: high school·er n.