Who Gets In? Strategies for Fair and Effective College Admissions

Rebecca Zwick

“The endless debate about fairness in college admissions needs a wise, thoughtful, informed, and far-ranging consideration of the issues and rigorous data to support the conclusions, which is exactly what Zwick offers in Who Gets In? Strategies for Fair and Effective College Admissions. This book will immediately be regarded as the definitive source on fairness in college admissions, and I expect it to be the gold standard for years to come.”—Bella DePaulo, author of How We Live Now: Redefining Home and Family in the 21st Century

Next Gen PhD: A Guide to Career Paths in Science

Melanie V. Sinche

“An excellent resource and timely companion for scientists learning to take on one of the most important questions of all: how to build a happy, productive career and a satisfying life. Melanie Sinche presents data, tools, and ways of thinking about the future that will be helpful for anyone considering what’s next after formal training as a researcher is complete. Readers who follow the book’s exercises and put thought into building their own career notebook will find themselves on a rational path through all the stages of moving from trainee to working professional, whether at the lab bench or in other work environments. With advice for self-reflection, career exploration, job search, negotiation of terms, and future growth, Next Gen PhD will be welcome reading for those thinking about their next career move and for those mentoring and training new scientists.”—Victoria McGovern, Burroughs Wellcome Fund

Redesigning America’s Community Colleges: A Clearer Path to Student Success

Thomas R. Bailey, Shanna Smith Jaggars, and Davis Jenkins

“Redesigning America’s Community Colleges: A Clearer Path to Student Success is an important step forward for community colleges. The work bridges the all-too-familiar divide between research and practice, outlining actionable, transformative recommendations to improve student attainment that have emerged out of the extensive portfolio of research conducted over the past 20 years by the Community College Research Center at Teachers College of Columbia University. And while many aspects of the book deserve discussion, how change can be effectively instigated at community colleges is a pivotal issue on which any reform efforts will hinge.”—James Jacobs, Inside Higher Ed

Practice for Life: Making Decisions in College

Lee Cuba, Nancy Jennings, Suzanne Lovett, and Joseph Swingle

“At a time when the value of college is a major subject of debate, this book answers the question: what do students really learn in college? The authors convincingly demonstrate that liberal education provides the critical framework needed for students to develop the ability to understand choices and make life-changing decisions. The depth of research reflected in this book, involving hundreds of students interviewed over the course of four years of college, makes it a unique resource for college and university administrators, professors, and students and families who seek to understand the nature of the college experience.”—Alison Byerly, President, Lafayette College

Inside Graduate Admissions: Merit, Diversity, and Faculty Gatekeeping

Julie R. Posselt

“Politicians, judges, journalists, parents and prospective students subject the admissions policies of undergraduate colleges and professional schools to considerable scrutiny, with much public debate over appropriate criteria. But the question of who gets into Ph.D. programs has by comparison escaped much discussion. That may change with the publication of Inside Graduate Admissions… While the departments reviewed in the book remain secret, the general process used by elite departments would now appear to be more open as a result of Posselt’s book.”—Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed

The Graduate School Mess: What Caused It and How We Can Fix It

Leonard Cassuto

“Cassuto clearly presents the challenges facing graduate institutions, including antiquated admissions policies; incoherent course offerings; esoteric, gatekeeping qualifying exams; long times to degrees; and failure to prepare students for diverse career outcomes… The novelty of his treatment is in identifying broader and more encompassing forms of teaching as a solution.”—Johanna Gutlerner, Science

Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology

Michelle D. Miller

“If you teach with technology in any form, at any level, I recommend you put this book at the top of your tottering pile of required reading on higher education. It’s an outstanding book that provides a road map for truly effective online teaching. What distinguishes [Miller’s] book from much of the research available on teaching with technology, and pushes it beyond arguments about improving access, is her emphasis on the ways in which online teaching tools can actually improve learning for all students—not just those who have no access to traditional face-to-face classrooms.”—James Lang, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning

Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel

Honorable Mention, 2015 PROSE Award, Education Theory category, Association of American Publishers • A Chronicle of Higher Education “Top 10 Books on Teaching” Selection, 2014

“If you want to read a lively and engaging book on the science of learning, this is a must… Make It Stick benefits greatly from its use of stories about people who have achieved mastery of complex knowledge and skills. Over the course of the book, the authors weave together stories from an array of learners—surgeons, pilots, gardeners, and school and university students—to illustrate their arguments about how successful learning takes place… This is a rich and resonant book and a pleasurable read that will leave you pondering the processes through which you, and your students, acquire new knowledge and skills.”—Hazel Christie, Times Higher Education

Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality

Elizabeth A. Armstrong and Laura T. Hamilton

2014 Outstanding Publication Award, Division J (Postsecondary Education) of the American Education Research Association • 2014 NCSA Scholarly Achievement Award, North Central Sociological Association

“Focusing on the pathways leading to the college experience, the authors reveal an honest, if at times unflattering, look at the reality of the academic experience for women of both high and low socioeconomic status. Packed in with the data derived from the authors’ interviews is an intimate portrait of the study’s participants combined with researcher commentary that clarifies what the data represent: an unsettling picture of universities failing to lessen the disadvantages facing many of their students… This work will provide spectacular insights into gender and schooling and serve as a useful example of how to report ethnographic research.”—Rachel Wadham, Library Journal (starred review)

What the Best College Students Do

Ken Bain

“Some very good books are worth reading for a few splendid pages alone. Ken Bain’s What the Best College Students Do is one such book… [It] combines interviews with a review of academic research on university learning… The ‘best’ students are curious risk-takers who make connections across disciplines. By following those instincts—rather than simply chasing ‘success’—the best students achieved it. Bain’s new book is a wonderful exploration of excellence.”—David A. Kaplan, Fortune