Over the past several years, the admissions officer has been confronted with a situation that does not fit into the scheme of his normal operations--namely, the admission of foreign students. Often, because it has not been in the order of things, he has delegated this "irksome" problem to some "lowly" assistant or to the interested professor who…

In this article, the author talks about the cultural bind on the American male. The process starts with conception. If the spermatozoid that fertilizes the egg contains only X chromosomes a girl will be produced. If a single Y chromosome out of the 24 produced by the father is included, the baby will be a boy. From this point on the girls have a…

Your name: F. Stanley Gogettum. Your job: Director of Admissions. Your institution: floundering University. Like all good admissions directors, you constantly ask yourself about your work and its effectiveness. Should you continue high school visits? Should you use Student Search Service, or maybe an unscreened (but perhaps cheaper) "commercial"…

Academics are all used to the idea that they have special ethical obligations. They may also, as administrators, recognize special administrative ethical obligations. But they do not like to think of themselves as businessmen, concerned with selling, and few of them indeed have thought directly and hard about the ethical constraints on marketing…

The U.S. college admission environment has changed enormously over the last three decades. What have those changes meant for the profession of college admission officers? In this paper, the authors will describe the enormous changes that have taken place in high schools, colleges, and the entrepreneurial admission sector. They will describe how…

When one thinks of seminal publications in college admission, the first piece that comes to mind is B. Alden Thresher's "College Admissions in the Public Interest" (1966). Thresher's work, relevant to this day, is credited with being the foundational document of the admission profession. McDonough and Robertson's 1995 study, commissioned by NACAC,…

When addressing the best ways to utilize high school visits, education professionals must remember that while student academic preparation, family support and financial aid improve student access to postsecondary education, the adult tutelage provided to students, regarding the requirements for postsecondary success and the process of securing…

Few professional processes are more personally intrusive than the college application. It demands information about your family, your finances, your interests, and your desires. For lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) applicants in their teenage years who may not be comfortable with their sexuality, admission officers need be sensitive…

The University of Southern California (USC) Center for Enrollment Research, Policy, and Practice, dedicated to research and action that advances the societal benefit of enrollment policies and practices in higher education, sought to shed light on professional preparation, career path and development issues related to chief admission officers and…

The Academic Success Inventory for College Students (ASICS) is a newly-developed, self-report instrument designed to evaluate academic success in college students. The 50-item instrument has 10 factors that measure general academic skills, career decidedness, internal and external motivation, anxiety, concentration, socializing, personal…

The purpose of this study was to identify the current practices and future plans for using technology in admission practices at four-year colleges and universities. This study collected data through an online survey. The survey was largely quantitative but also included several qualitative questions, and focused on 12 broad categories of…

Recruitment pieces are often part of a university's larger marketing effort or branding. With the assistance of consultants, admission officers conduct research and often know more about prospective students than students may know about themselves (Gose 1999). Why do admission offices often have a difficult time reaching target audiences?…

An estimated 1.1 million students were homeschooled in the United States in spring 2003, according to the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (2006). This figure represents a sizeable increase from the homeschooling rate of 1.7 percent--or 850,000 students--in 1999. With the popularity of homeschooling…

Community colleges enroll nearly half the undergraduates in the U.S. These institutions play a significant role in the academic, social, political, and economic future of our nation. As historically open admission institutions, with a primary focus on providing access to higher education, they have been pressed in recent decades--as has all of…

There is no shortage of places in higher education--most noncompetitive colleges could admit more students, but institutions often struggle to get the class that they want. Professionals consider the admission process successful when they are able to configure a class that meets the institution's many missions and notions, rather than just…