Who Goes to College? Features of Institutional Tracking in Japanese Higher Education

Features of institutional tracking play a key role in shaping an individual's access to and advancement through higher education in Japan. This article brings institutional tracking features to the foreground and examines the process by which individuals advance from middle school to high school and, ultimately, to college. The analysis also accounts for social origin effects, thereby allowing us to reexamine claims of meritocracy in conjunction with institutional tracking effects. I find support for a tournament-like mobility for individuals in the system of higher education in Japan, where those who move down do not move up again. My research also finds strong evidence that social origin matters and that institutional tracking affects men and women in different ways.