October 6, 2008

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Texas Higher Education Opportunity Project (THEOP)

THEOP is a multi-year study that investigates college planning and enrollment behavior under a policy that guarantees admission to any Texas public college or university to high school seniors who graduate in the top decile of their class. The study collects administrative data on applications, admissions and enrollment from 10 colleges and universities in the state that differ in the selectivity of their admissions, and conducts a two-cohort longitudinal survey of sophomores and seniors who were enrolled in Texas public schools as of spring, 2002.

For more information about this project please visit the project website at http://theop.princeton.edu/.

Public Use Data

THEOP data are available for both the senior and sophomore cohorts of the baseline survey (wave 1) and for the senior cohort of the follow-up survey (wave 2). The THEOP baseline survey sample is statistically representative of the state population of seniors and sophomores enrolled in public high schools as of spring, 2002.

The baseline survey (wave 1) is based on a stratified random sample of 105 high schools, or 13,803 and 19,969 students for senior and sophomore cohorts, respectively. Respondents completed a paper and pencil questionnaire that asked about their course taking and grades, experiences with guidance counselors, knowledge and perceptions of college admissions process, college perceptions, future plans and demographic information, including race and ethnic origin, family background, and household structure. Seniors were asked questions about colleges applied to, their self-reported admission status, and plans to attend college.

A sample of 5,836 respondents from the senior cohort were re-interviewed (wave 2) one year after graduating high school to ascertain primary post-secondary school activity, military enlistment, laber force participation, etc.

Please include the following acknowledgement on the cover page of all papers published using THEOP data:

This research uses public data from the Texas Higher Education Opportunity Project (THEOP) and acknowledges the following agencies that made THEOP data available through grants and support: Ford Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Spencer Foundation, National Science Foundation (NSF Grant # SES-0350990), The National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD Grant # R24 H0047879) and The Office of Population Research at Princeton University.

For more information on these datasets, including questionnaires and methodology reports, please visit the THEOP website, especially the Statewide Survey page.

To access these datasets please login or register as a user of the data archive.