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Transitions to upper secondary education are crucial to explain different degrees of social selectivity in diverse education systems. In Catalonia these transitions are especially relevant as the education system is formally comprehensive until the end of compulsory secondary schooling, and only at this point the system is divided in two different tracks: the academic and the vocational. The aim of the paper is to analyse the structural, institutional and discursive articulation of this transition point from the perspective of the sociology of the education policy. Specifically, the paper explores three dimensions of analysis: the structure of the education system, the planning of the supply, and the guidance models. The analysis is based on 28 in-depth interviews with policy makers and stakeholders in the field of upper secondary education in Barcelona. The results point out to the relevance of the political-institutional articulation, contradictions, tensions and omissions of different education systems in setting unequal opportunities of educational transition.

In Chile, from the year 2013, “Class Rank” was introduced as a new factor of university selection in the Chilean admission system, which aim is to improve equity in access to higher university education. This policy has provoked diverse objections and the evaluation carried out has shown almost no impact in altering the inequity of access in general. However, this called diversity of Chilean higher education, is expected to have significant effect in the most selective programs, which have a more socially elitized group of students. This paper analyzes the results of the “Class Rank” mechanism in relation to its objectives, in a set of the highest selective majors. Based on the record of selected applicants from the years 2012 to 2014, an indicator of socioeconomic classification of each student was constructed. The aim of this indicator is to follow the changes in the social composition of the selected students in the most selective programs, before and after the introduction of the “Class Rank” in the admission process. It is concluded that there are no changes in the socioeconomic dimension, from the incorporation of “Class Rank” in the admissions process. At the same time a more open debate is proposed about the relation among the inclusion policies and selection methodologies at higher university level.