ABSTRACT
The core question is not about basic ‘access’ to higher education. It is not about persistence to the second term or the second year following post-secondary entry. It is about completion of academic credentials – the culmination of opportunity, guidance, choice, effort, and commitment.
(Adelman 2006)There is no ‘best’ method for admitting students to university. At one extreme there are systems of open enrolment in which the possession of an end of secondary education certificate is sufficient to gain entry. At the other extreme there are some highly selective systems subject to rigorous state control. Open enrolment can result in high levels of student attrition: an emphasis on selection distorts the secondary schooling system. Students can sometimes only apply for entry once they have all the necessary entry requirements and this results in quick decisions about entry, commonly in the spring, but can leave students without motivation for the remainder of the period in secondary education. Application before the outcomes of entrance examinations are known maximizes the time at secondary school devoted to the pre-university examinations but offers of places have to made on the basis of guesses about the eventual outcome of the assessment process.
Entry qualifications themselves vary considerably in the ways in which they help to prepare students appropriately for a university experience. On the one hand, they are often qualifications in their own right with value in the job marketplace. On the other, they need to develop in students those attributes required to succeed in higher education.
