Choosing Colleges: How Social Class and Schools Structure Opportunity

by Patricia M. McDonough

Examines the everyday experiences of high school seniors as they choose their colleges and demonstrates that college choice is a more complex social and organizational reality than has been previously understood.

Based on interviews with students, parents, and counselors as well as case studies of the college guidance environments of a working-class public school, an upper-middle-class public school, a private preparatory school, and a Catholic school, McDonough examines the everyday experiences of high school seniors as they choose their colleges. The author shows that college choice is a more complex social and organizational reality than has been previously understood and shows how families and schools mutually influence individual student outcomes and our higher education opportunity structure.

After half a century of increasing federal, state, and private investments in higher education, phenomenal growth in the number of colleges, and enrollments of almost fifteen million students, Choosing Colleges asks why it is that there are vast differentials in college access. McDonough addresses access and equity issues by documenting how student college-choice decision making is influenced by colleges, high schools, parents, friends, and the media.

"I think in-depth case studies and interpretive analyses of students' college decision making can provide much needed additions to the college-choice literature. This book is a very welcome contribution to the genre.The reader is drawn irresistibly into the world of these young people as they proceed through this important choice process." -- James C. Hearn, Institute of Higher Education, University of Georgia

"The focus on the effects of family, friends, and high school counselors on college choice is a much needed addition to the college access literature. This book represents a major empirical advance in the field. It is a corrective to the individually-oriented education and status-attainment literature and it extends the organizational approach to education." -- David Karen, Bryn Mawr College

Genres: Education, Professional Development, Nonfiction, Sociology

186 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1997

Reviews

[Jessica]

for school
i rlly liked the vignettes and it was captivating! i just wish i didn't have to read it for school--altho if it hadn't been for school, it would never be a book that i would pick up bc it's outside of my realm of genre interests. anyways, 3/5 stars bc it is average. not brilliant, not bad. just average. i liked the analysis of the different schools/characters :) also easy to read/digest--i'm able to speed thru it wihtout heavy analysis--which is preferred bc this is for school lol pain oki ya

[Robert Boone · Rating 3 out of 5]

The text is a bit dated (1997), but highlights some insightful considerations among low- and high-SES students regarding post-secondary choice. Most impressive is the chapter dealing with SES as an indicator for familial involvement with the college selection process and the impact of friends and secondary schools in the absence of active family guidance.
Many points of the text remain relevant today as policy makers continue to struggle with the breadth of open access institutions and the potential SES sorting functions that have unfortunately become characteristic of higher education in America.

[Regan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for my program. Meh. It was OK, it brought forth some decent questions and some interesting takes but, ultimately, it's nearly 20 years old, only studied 12 female students all in the middle class, and all in California meaning that there is only limited application to the study as a whole. So far, this is the only text I've read for this class that doesn't make me want to scream, throw the book across the room, and then set fire to it with the raw rage flooding from my eyes. So that's a good thing.

[Tonya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Forgive me... school has started, so I only read what is required these days. Although, this one is pretty interesting!

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant! Game changer in the world of college access research.