ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Dear friends,

I passed my dissertation defense around 2:15pm today! It went well and I enjoyed it a lot! (Which was quite unexpectedly!)

I wish to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your support in the past 6 years! I own you emotionally and psychologically!

Talk to you all later over phone! Now I will go to Met Opera to celebrate MY night!

Po

BTW, here I post my acknowledgement from my thesis, to thank those who helped me to improve my dissertation writing. Thank you!

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I would like to thank my dissertation advisor, Professor Thomas Bailey, for his constant advice and support. He put tremendous energy to help me go though the lengthy writing and revisions. This dissertation is not possible without his input and guidance. I would also like to thank all the members of my dissertation committee, Henry Levin, Mun Tsang, Kevin Dougherty, and Jennifer Hill for their outstanding comments which greatly improved this dissertation. Professor Levin had taken considerable time to clarify my thinking and writing and I am truly thankful for that.

I gratefully acknowledge scholars who had defined my research interests and help me complete this research. Prof. Bailey, Prof. Dougherty, Dr. Joseph Hankin, and Dr. Cliff Adelman introduced me to the research of community college and college transfer. Prof. Seymour Spilerman and Prof. Jennifer Hill had helped me improve my research design. A special acknowledgement is given to my friends Anna Chung, Xu Li, Dr. Rong Chen, Dr. Liang Zhang, and Dr. David Cheng who had helped me with the earlier drafts and the technical and emotional support needed to complete this manuscript.

I would like to thank the Association for Institutional Research and the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative for their generous dissertation grant to support this work. I also acknowledge the financial support provided by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University and the Office of Policy and Research at Teachers College.

Finally, I would like to thank my parents, my family, and my friends in New York and in Beijing who had guided me to make meaning out of my doctoral study as a pilgrimage to the infinite and charming intellectual world.