Choice and Selection: the Social Process of Transfer to Higher Education

ABSTRACTThe allocation System whereby students pass from school to university is examined, and empirical evidence reviewed to establish the extent to which it approximates to the rationalistic model predicted by official literature on university admissions. Data from surveys in schools and universities tend to show that decisions are not the outcome of logical evaluations of objective information, but of poorly understood social processes in which institutional constraints and popular stereotypes play a major part. Implications are discussed for the secondary school curriculum, for inequalities in the selection process and for developments in admissions policies in an expanding system of higher education.