Drawing on serial interviews (N = 200) of 53 students at an admissions-selective university, we show that incoming students with disparate precollege experiences differ in their orientations toward and strategies for considering first college math courses. Content repeaters opt for courses that repeat material covered in prior coursework, whereas novices opt for courses covering material new to them. Content repeaters receive high grades and…

This study considers the role of religious habitus and self-concept in educational stratification. The authors follow 3,238 adolescents for 13 years by linking the National Study of Youth and Religion to the National Student Clearinghouse. Survey data reveal that girls with a Jewish upbringing have two distinct postsecondary patterns compared to girls with a non-Jewish upbringing, even after controlling for…

US colleges and universities are defined by their exclusivity, and the most prestigious schools reject most of those who apply. Yet these same schools also widely advertise their inclusiveness, encouraging students from all backgrounds to submit applications and highlighting evaluation protocols that identify many characteristics worthy of consideration for admission. We surface this paradox and use it as motivation to…

Analyzing 60,000 undergraduate applications to the University of California, the authors find that extant gender segregation of academic disciplines also manifests in intended major choice. Gender and SAT Math scores together strongly predict intent to major in biology and engineering, the most popular and gender-segregated majors. Using natural language processing, the authors also find that author gender is more predictive…

Elective curriculums require undergraduates to choose from a large roster of courses for enrollment each term. It has proven difficult to characterize this fateful choice process because it remains largely unobserved. Using digital trace data to observe this process at scale at a private research university, together with qualitative student interviews, we provide a novel empirical study of course consideration…

Drawing on their own design for a longitudinal cohort study of undergraduate students, Harrison and Hernandez share techniques for smoothing research relationships and logistics through widely available digital media.