A STUDY OF COLLEGE ADMISSION OFFICERS’ ATTITUDES AND\ud PERCEPTIONS ABOUT CYBER-CHARTER HIGH SCHOOL APPLICANTS

Admission officers at post-secondary institutions face the contemporary challenge of evaluating applicants who have chosen to attend online high schools. The rapidly increasing enrollment in online educational programs has drastically outpaced the research related to the outcomes associated with this decision. The goal of this quantitative study was to explore the attitudes and perceptions held by post-secondary admission counselors in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania when reviewing cyber-charter high school applicants. This study also assessed the variations in admission procedures used for admitting applicants from cyber-charter high schools to post-secondary institutions. Finally, this study explored any relationships that may exist between the characteristics of the post-secondary institution and the attitudes and perceptions of an admission officer employed at this same institution about the cyber-charter school applicant.\ud The method of data collection was a structured survey distributed electronically to members of a professional organization of admission counselors in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The convenience sample included two hundred and seven respondents who completed Likert-type rating scales and provided categorical demographic data. Cyber-charter school applicants were not found to be at a procedural disadvantage during the post-secondary admission process. However, the key finding of the study indicates that a considerable number of admission counselors do not believe that the cyber-charter applicant will perform as well as a traditional high school applicant upon enrollment at the post-secondary level. The characteristics of a post-secondary institution were found to have little influence upon the admission counselor’s attitudes. An unexpected finding from the categorical data collected from the respondents, many of whom possess less than five years of experience, indicated that nearly as many admission counselors make unilateral decisions as those who do so in an admission committee. The findings revealed that applicants to post-secondary institutions in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania might face negative attitudes and perceptions during the admission process because of their choice to attend a cyber-charter school