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The purpose of this paper is to explore ethical challenges and dilemmas that exist within admissions systems at colleges and universities in the USA.

Although the issues considered herein are examined primarily from the perspective of admissions officers, this paper also considers the viewpoint of prospective students (and their parents) who are seeking to gain entrance to specific institutions of higher education. The ethical concerns of admissions officers and prospective students within the admissions process is explored through conceptual analysis of a trilogy of ethical concerns and arguments regarding the higher education admissions process in the USA.

Part I of the trilogy explores the admissions profession as a calling, discusses some of the ethical issues currently involved in the admissions field, and makes the argument that most of these ethical issues are rooted in a breakdown of the admissions system in two areas – access and trust. Part II of the trilogy focuses on the ethical pressures that are encountered by various types of post‐secondary educational institutions as the admissions process unfolds. These pressures are examined in the context of an ethical typology that describes the admissions practices of colleges and universities in terms of the congruency between their espoused and enacted values. The degree of congruency between espoused and enacted values defines whether the admissions process is viewed as immoral, pseudo‐moral, or moral – and each view has important implications for the efficacy and fairness of college and university admissions. Part III of the trilogy examines three categories of ethical dilemmas – recruiting, personal biases in admissions decisions, and conflicts between personal ethical standards and institutional directives – that confront admissions officers on a daily basis. The implications of these dilemmas are considered relative to three general types of schools: ultra selective colleges and universities, non‐selective private colleges and universities, and large state‐funded public colleges and universities.

The admission systems at colleges and universities in the USA provide fertile ground for the development of ethical challenges and dilemmas regarding which prospective students will gain entry into which academic institutions. Recognizing these ethical challenges and dilemmas and effectively dealing with them is a professional imperative for admissions officers and the academic institutions they represent. Conceptualizing the ethical challenges of admissions within the context of access and trust provides an innovative approach guiding admissions professionals toward moral decisions and actions regarding who is admitted to their respective institutions.

This study investigates the influence of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the interpretation and application of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) by examining a group of SEC-selected foreign private issuers filing 2005 annual reports in the USA and reporting using IFRS for the first time.

This paper uses hand-collected information from SEC comment letters to analyze IFRS topics and documents the ultimate resolution of each SEC comment (no change to filing, current change to filing or prospective change to future filing). The authors use descriptive statistical analyses, as well as a logistic regression model involving the resolution of each SEC comment, to examine the SEC’s influence on the interpretation of IFRS.

The study finds both higher comment totals, and higher numbers of required filing modifications, for those IFRS pronouncements which were identified as needing improvement during the 2006-2008 convergence efforts by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Additionally, the study documents a decreasing likelihood of a filing modification when US generally accepted accounting principles (US GAAP) guidance is referenced in comment letter correspondence involving IFRS topics.

The study extends the IFRS literature and the SEC comment letter literature by focusing on the resolution of comments directed at IFRS disclosures, as well as exploring the factors which influence whether a comment ultimately requires a filing modification.