TRANSITION FROM CONSIDERATION OF A COLLEGE TO THE DECISION TO APPLY

Other researchers have found that personal socioeconomic background, m easures of the fit between characteristics of institutions and factors students want in colleges they attend, and measures of the quality an d location of the high school attended influence aspiration for higher education and/or the matriculation decision. In this study I investig ate the effects of similar variables on students' decisions to apply t o a particular institution after asking the Educational Testing Servic e to send their SAT scores to it. The results indicate that the fit be tween a student's preferences and an institution's characteristics has the most substantial impact on the decision to apply. Within the set of variables measuring this fit, correspondence between location desir ed, if the location is close to the student's home, and a SAT score ei ther at or above the average score of applicants to the institution st and out as primary predictors.