The reasons academically gifted high school seniors select institutions of higher education and their interest in precollege, university-level courses were studied. Gifted seniors in the Tucson Unified School District were mailed the Higher Education Orientation Inventory (HEOI), an adaptation of the Graduate Student Satisfaction Questionnaire. Gifted seniors were identified as those scoring at or above the 90th percentile on at least two of the three sub-areas of the California Achievement Test, Form C, Level 18. A total of 165 responses were analyzed with a principal components analysis followed by a varimax rotation. Findings for the 73 males and 92 females from 10 high schools were as follows: there was a substantial interest in attending university-level courses; of the 29 reasons posed there were 4 underlying factors of choice (the academic quality of the institution, special institutional features, social aspects of the institution, socioeconomic forces); and the academic quality factor had three aspects (instruction, interaction, and independence). Specifically, 84 percent of the academically gifted seniors felt that earning college credit before high school graduation was valuable, and 73 percent indicated that they would attend an intensive college-level course if it were offered. However, only 59 percent were interested in attending a summer university program designed to introduce them to college life. It is suggested that findings would be valuable to college and university administrators, recruiters, and high school counselors. Appended information includes factor loadings of the 29 reasons for choice of schools posed by the HEOI. (SW)