Investigating Ivy

This qualitative study examined how race and class shaped the college choice process and collegiate experiences of Black undergraduates attending Ivy League Institutions. Findings revealed that although social class did not play a significant role in participants’ college choice process, robust financial aid packaging significantly impacted their decision to attend a highly selective university. Racial identity was largely viewed by participants as a vehicle to admit more Black Immigrant students than Black Native students in order to achieve institutional diversity/affirmative action goals. Prevalent racialized incidents and institutional racism shaped participants’ collegiate experiences. The findings of this study are expected to have implications for minority recruitment, college choice, access and equity, as well as higher education diversity initiatives.

Factors associated with depression among university students: the role of students satisfaction

University education is recognized as an important period of life that determines the future trajectories and success of individuals. It is also the time when the onset of depression peaks. In this paper, we use data on 4,182 students from a selective university to identify the main factors associated with symptoms of depression among this cohort. Besides socio-demographic characteristics that are largely out of the university's control, we pay specific attention to the role of students’ satisfaction with various aspects of their university life. We find that controlling for potential confounders, satisfaction is negatively associated with depression. We also find that survey data routinely collected by the university could be used to identify individuals at high risk of future depression.

The role of private tutoring in admission to higher education: Evidence from a highly selective university in Kazakhstan

The present mixed-methods study explored first-year undergraduate students of a highly selective university in Kazakhstan's perceptions of having private tutoring (PT) and how far it had helped them gain a place at this university. The quantitative data were collected through a close-ended questionnaire from 144 participants to understand their socioeconomic backgrounds and PT experiences over the previous two years, in terms of the scope, types, costs and the subjects studied in the PT they had received. The subsequent qualitative data were collected through interviewing 8 participants to capture in detail the perceived impact of PT on their overall achievement. The study found that 86 out of 144 participants (60%) had received PT. Most of them (72%) had sought PT as an enrichment strategy to obtain higher scores in high-stakes examinations and thus secure a place at that university. Some participants explained the disadvantages of PT, including the financial burden on their families and it being a potentially unfair advantage in a competitive context. The findings of the study are instructive for educators and policy makers in Kazakhstan in revealing the limitations of schooling in the public sector. The pedagogical implications and areas for ongoing research are suggested.

Class Incorporated: Stratified Patterns of Academic Engagement at a Highly Selective University

This research examines the influence of social class stratification on students’ self-reported academic engagement. Drawing from 44 interviews with students from the three major class groups at an elite university, we show how social class patterns academic engagement. We analyze academic engagement along the following four domains: strategies for academic achievement, beliefs in personal ability, connections to academics, and the alignments between academic activities and career plans (Wang and Castenada-Sound, 2008). Counterintuitively, compared to both upper class and students from the lower class, middle-class students reported the lowest levels of academic engagement. We discuss possible explanations for these non-linear findings. We conclude by recommending that our traditional conceptions of academic engagement need to take social class into account, and further, that policy makers consider scaffolding for all non-upper class students within elite spaces.

The Learning Effect of Online Discussions: New Active Form of Learning under COVID-19

Background: COVID-19 created confusion in all areas of society and is no exception in education. In line with the demands of the times, we investigated the applicability of active learning online for the health professional.Methods: This study was conducted in the school of dentistry, a selective university. Eighty-two dentistry students participated in this study in the second semester of 2020. The students were randomly assigned to four different groups and learned according to given experimental procedures. Their performance in the final test scores was analyzed using ANOVAs. Subsequently, we systematically analyzed past offline active learning and online experiments.Results: As with past offline experiments, self-study before discussion groups have achieved high learning outcomes in verbatim type and transfer type items. Online self-study groups scored slightly lower than offline self-study groups, but online self-study groups scored higher than offline and online lecture groups.Conclusions: Our findings denote that active learning for health professionals was applicable online. When self-study precedes the discussion, it becomes richer, thereby increasing students' learning outcomes.

Does Attending a More Elite School Lead to Better Labor Market Outcomes?

College football prospects in the market for an athletic scholarship face similar career-altering choices as traditional academic students when selecting a college, however, the market they operate in is very different. They are actively recruited by university coaches and closely observed by a college sports scouting industry. Their choice of school is highly anticipated and publicized within college sport culture. College football is no doubt a lucrative industry, particularly for the elite university football programs, but one may want to know if the athletic scholars themselves gain in any career measurable way by attending a more elite university football program. This analysis uses the scouting and coaches screening information to form a baseline control for pre-college ability and then estimates the value-added from choosing a more selective football program by measuring 3 observable football oriented career outcomes: 1) the probability of receiving an invite to the NFL Combine, 2) an objective metric for strength and conditioning, and 3) a player's overall order from the NFL draft. Evidence shows that recruits who choose a more selective university football program have a higher probability of receiving an invite to the NFL Combine. However, once at the Combine, there is no evidence that more selective university football programs produce better athletes based upon standardized strength and conditioning tests. Evidence also suggests that NFL employers utilize the objective information they gain at the NFL Combine in their draft decisions, in which case, the premium enjoyed from the initial Combine invite is attenuated. If NFL teams update the information obtained from the Combine into their draft decisions, then there is no evidence attending a more selective football program generates value-added to a recruit’s ability and thus, their post-college career. Additionally, there is suggestive evidence that highly sought after football recruits are made worse off by the recruiting process in general, holding objective measures of ability constant.

Can role models help encourage young people to apply to (selective) universities? Evidence from a large scale English field experiment

Under-participation in selective universities lowers social mobility in England, the United States, and elsewhere. English universities have standardized tuition costs, and strongly heterogeneous graduate earnings. Attending a selective university is therefore strongly incentivized, yet under-participation is extensive. The British Government sent 11,104 “nudge” letters to school students whose prior attainment made them competitive for entry into selective universities, urging them to consider that option. We evaluate this RCT and find it effective at raising the number of students who apply to, and accept offers from, selective universities. We find the cost to be low relative to outcomes.

The Relation of Scientific Creativity and Evaluation of Scientific Impact to Scientific Reasoning and General Intelligence

In many nations, grades and standardized test scores are used to select students for programs of scientific study. We suggest that the skills that these assessments measure are related to success in science, but only peripherally in comparison with two other skills, scientific creativity and recognition of scientific impact. In three studies, we investigated the roles of scientific creativity and recognition of scientific impact on scientific thinking. The three studies described here together involved 219 students at a selective university in the Northeast U.S. Participants received assessments of scientific creativity and recognition of scientific impact as well as a variety of previously used assessments measuring scientific reasoning (generating alternative hypotheses, generating experiments, drawing conclusions) and the fluid aspect of general intelligence (letter sets, number series). They also provided scores from either or both of two college-admissions tests—the SAT and the ACT—as well as demographic information. Our goal was to determine whether the new tests of scientific impact and scientific creativity correlated and factored with the tests of scientific reasoning, fluid intelligence, both, or neither. We found that our new measures tapped into aspects of scientific reasoning as we previously have studied it, although the factorial composition of the test on recognition of scientific impact is less clear than that of the test of scientific creativity. We also found that participants rated high-impact studies as more scientifically rigorous and practically useful than low-impact studies, but also generally as less creative, probably because their titles/abstracts were seemingly less novel for our participants. Replicated findings across studies included the correlation of Letter Sets with Number Series (both measures of fluid intelligence) and the correlation of Scientific Creativity with Scientific Reasoning.

Bragging Backfires

Does everyone in the universe really need to know where your kid is headed for college this fall? Even if your child is marching through the front door of a highly selective university, there isn't much to be gained by announcing this news publicly. In fact, there's a lot to be lost. I say this as a daughter who remembers cringing, literally, when my dad—upon meeting old friends, new acquaintances, or just innocent bystanders at the local hardware store—would somehow work into the conversation an update on one or another of his children's accomplishments. In the same column of “nobody needs to know who hasn't asked,” I'd put your child's SAT scores, their awards, the personal record you set in your last marathon, and anything else that, by making you or your progeny look good, makes the person forced to listen to you feel bad. Since we all know what it's like to be on the receiving end of bragging, it's always been somewhat of a mystery to me why bragging persists.