Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study extends research on college choice by examining what African American students say about the importance of college athletic reputation in choosing which school to attend. We first examine, among African American high school seniors who express plans to attend colleges immediately after high school, the overall distribution of self-reported factors that shaped their college choices. We then conduct factor analysis to examine the structure of relations among the diverse factors shaping student preferences and their contribution to understanding variation in the college choice process among African Americans. Finally, to understand the relations of athletic reputation with other relevant college selection and access factors, we undertake logistic regression analyses. Our descriptive results show that roughly one out of every three African American respondents report that a school’s athletic reputation is at least a somewhat important consideration in determining their college choice. The factor analysis revealed four common factors--Academic/Career, Economic/Practical, Demographic, and Social. Academic/Career issues represented the strongest factor, with Social considerations ranked somewhat lower in importance. College’s athletic reputation had the highest loading on the Social factor across analysis groups.