{"id":55195,"date":"2013-05-16T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2013-05-16T17:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=55195"},"modified":"2013-10-31T04:12:43","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T09:12:43","slug":"social-class-and-the-college-choices-of-high-school-valedictorians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/05\/16\/social-class-and-the-college-choices-of-high-school-valedictorians\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Class and the College Choices of High School Valedictorians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at The Huffington Post<\/a>\u00a0and Pacific Standard<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sociologist\u00a0Alexandria Walton Radford<\/a> has some new research<\/a> that is rather disheartening. \u00a0Radford was interested in the college choices of ambitious and high-performing high school students from different class backgrounds. \u00a0Using a data set with about 900 high school valedictorians, she asked whether students applied to highly selective colleges, if they got in, and whether they matriculated.<\/p>\n

She found a stark class difference on all these variables, especially between high socioeconomic status (SES) students and everyone else. \u00a0Over three-quarters of high SES valedictorians (79%) applied to at least one highly selective college. \u00a0In contrast, only 59% of middle SES and 50% of low SES\u00a0valedictorians did the same. \u00a0Admission and matriculation rates followed suit.<\/p>\n

\"2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Interviews with a smaller group of these valedictorians shed light on why we see such dramatic differences in the application choices of low, middle, and high SES students. \u00a0Radford explains that most students applied to schools with which they were already familiar. High SES students were much more likely to know people who had attended highly selective colleges, so they were more comfortable applying. \u00a0They also felt more confident that they’d be successful at such an institution; less affluent students were more intimidated by these schools.<\/p>\n

Radford concludes by arguing that it’s a mistake to leave decisions about whether and how to apply for college admission to families. \u00a0Doing so, she writes, “allows the advantages (and disadvantages) of one generation to be passed on to the next generation.” \u00a0School-based college guidance would go some way towards evening out the differences and making higher education admissions more meritocratic.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at The Huffington Post\u00a0and Pacific Standard. Sociologist\u00a0Alexandria Walton Radford has some new research that is rather disheartening. \u00a0Radford was interested in the college choices of ambitious and high-performing high school students from different class backgrounds. \u00a0Using a data set with about 900 high school valedictorians, she asked whether students applied to highly selective colleges, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[209,29,34,295],"class_list":["post-55195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-academia","tag-class","tag-education","tag-social-networks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55195"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58016,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55195\/revisions\/58016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}