Texas high schools and precursors to students' college attendance

In three separate papers, this dissertation examines the role of school characteristics and within-school interactions on precursors to college attendance. The main source of data for each paper is the Texas Higher Education Opportunity Study, an ongoing longitudinal study of Texas high school students.; The first paper explores the association between school racial composition and students' expectations to graduate from a 4-year university. I find that in addition to the individual characteristics of students that have been repeatedly shown to influence educational goals, both school socioeconomic level and achievement composition are related to expectations. Additionally, results suggest the counterintuitive finding that when comparing similar schools, students in schools with greater concentrations of minority students are more likely to expect to attain a 4-year college degree compared with students in schools with lower proportions of minority students.; In the second paper, I examine the role of high school guidance counselors on Texas high school students' knowledge of college admissions policies and standards. By using refined measures of counselor interaction, I find that exposure to and encouragement from high school guidance counselors is related to student knowledge of the Texas college admissions environment. Furthermore, results suggest that school counseling orientation on college preparation is also related to student knowledge of college admissions policies and standards.; In the final paper, I ask how much contact students have with counselors for assistance with college application materials. I examine whether counselors act to reinforce or replace parental educational attitudes and abilities that support their children's completion of college applications. Findings indicate that counselors are more likely to provide guidance to students whose parents can also assist with applications and who have strong pro-educational attitudes, thus playing a reinforcing role to the least needy students. Additionally, I find some evidence that school climate is associated with counselor application assistance, and that more academic school settings can decrease disparities in counselor access between students with and without parental support.