<p>I-Dad, I am not sure that this year's survey has anything to do with the COFHE's exercise.</p>
<p>
[quote]
This year’s graduates were more satisfied with their cumulative experiences than with any particular part—whether academics, extracurricular activities, or social life—according to a Crimson survey that polled more than 600 seniors. Women were slightly more satisfied than men in each area, the survey found.</p>
<p>Satisfaction with extracurricular activities was higher than with academics or social life, with 80 percent reporting that they were very satisfied or generally satisfied.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>As far as COFHE, its stated mission is</p>
<p>
[quote]
As provided for in its Agreement of Association, the purposes of the Consortium include the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Collecting from and reporting to the member institutions historical data relating to admission, financial aid, and costs. </li>
<li>Conducting periodic and special studies, as desired, to investigate aspects of institutional policy and administrative practices. </li>
<li>Convening meetings of the membership for general policy and research discussions of broad interest and import. </li>
<li>Monitoring developments within the federal government and the private sector as these developments relate to the financing of higher education, with specific emphasis on financial aid and student loan programs. </li>
<li>Cooperating and coordinating with other organizations concerned with higher education.
[/quote]
</li>
</ul>
<p>For all the talks about increased transparency and other "attacks" by Kennedy, one could hope that this group could be forced to open their books ... wide open. </p>
<p>IMHO, their foremost raison d'etre should not be "Collecting from and reporting to the member institutions historical data relating to admission, financial aid, and costs." but "Collecting from the member institutions historical data relating to admission, financial aid, and costs and reporting the data to the **PUBLIC **after **CERTIFYING **them to be accurate."</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure that the Crimson was reporting the COFHE senior survey results. The survey is given every other year in even numbered years. Full COFHE data is compiled and distributed every four years.</p>
<p>All of those categories are part of the standard COFHE senior survey. They also appear on the HEDS senior survey used in the same way by non-COFHE schools. This survey stuff is pretty innocuous. I don't see any grand conspiracy.</p>
<p>It is used mostly as feed stock for ad hoc faculty committees on this and that, along with accreditation self-studies.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm pretty sure that the Crimson was reporting the COFHE senior survey results.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The news story described the survey as the Crimson's survey. It was bad journalism to describe the survey methodology as sparingly as it was described in the news story.</p>
<p>However, none of this elevate the value of the exercise well beyond the self-reported data used by The College Board or surveys used by Princeton Review. At it stands, there is no consistency on how the survey is distributed and the "reasonableness" of the answers is directly proportional to the mood of the students who are polled. Is there a difference for a senior who pockets $25.00 versus one who is forced to fill that [fill the blank with expletive] before getting his or her diploma? Draw your own conclusions!</p>
<p>If I think that it is pretty dumb for schools to place much credibility in the results they obtain, I have no doubt that it is absolute heresy for outsiders to consider any partially leaked result anything else than the utter garbage it is.</p>
<p>Fwiw, I'd hope that the Crimson would be smart enough to use their own version.</p>
<p>
[quote]
However, none of this elevate the value of the exercise well beyond the self-reported data used by The College Board or surveys used by Princeton Review.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, it's vastly more reliable than the junk from Princeton Review. First, you know that the respondents are actually real students from the classes being surveyed (or their parents from the COFHE parents survey).</p>
<p>Second, the response rates are pretty high. Swat has been running 60%+ response rates.</p>
<p>If I'm not mistaken, there is consistency. The COFHE survey I completed and recent student surveys at Swat have been administered by MIT with mailing lists and e-mail lists provided by the college. I know that I logged on to an MIT site with an individual password to complete the COFHE parents survey.</p>
<p>I think it is very difficult for more than 80% of any larger school's students to be satisfied. That is a very good number, 80%. I'm surprised it is that high.</p>
<p>Wisconsin and Virginia get over 90% in the similar NSSE survey of seniors which is done with some scientific controls. The peer average is just under 90% on NSSE I think.</p>
<p>
[quote]
No, it's vastly more reliable than the junk from Princeton Review. First, you know that the respondents are actually real students from the classes being surveyed (or their parents from the COFHE parents survey).</p>
<p>Second, the response rates are pretty high. Swat has been running 60%+ response rates.</p>
<p>If I'm not mistaken, there is consistency. The COFHE survey I completed and recent student surveys at Swat have been administered by MIT with mailing lists and e-mail lists provided by the college. I know that I logged on to an MIT site with an individual password to complete the COFHE parents survey.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The problems with surveys such as COFHE and Princeton Review are different. Princeton Review suffers from the "Kennedy in Chicago" sybdrome where students can vote ... as often as they want. The obvious result is that the lack of control and integrity yields skewed data. </p>
<p>Fwiw, there are also students who fill the COFHE data (and as you say parents.) You're speculating that seniors are "interested" in providing accurate replies. I am speculating that ticked off students who are forced to waste their time or are kept hostage in any way are less ... likely to go through the form with seriousness. From previous interviews, we have learned that students deliberately gave wrong answers such as giving high marks to .... Health Services at Harvard. </p>
<p>It might be very well be that the students you know (or have raised) who attend Swarthmore take this kind of "stuff" seriously, but I would rank the chances of that being universal between slim and none.</p>
<p>Inasmuch as the design and compilation might be "scientific" my take is that the results are pretty much what you could get from a bunch of seniors who could not care less about the questions posed.</p>
<p>
[quote]
For comparison 91% of Wisconsin seniors would probably attend again and 92% rated their education good or excellent
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think that actually speaks to one of the main problems of the comparability of the data, specifically that it's about seniors. Let's face it. At any college, not every student makes it to the senior level and not every student will graduate. Since Wisconsin was used as a point of reference, it should be noted that only 78% of UW students will actually graduate (in 6 years), compared to 98% of Harvard students. Heck, the freshman retention rate of Wisconsin is only 93% for fulltime students (and even lower for part-time students). In other words, a far higher percentage of the student body at Harvard will actually graduate than will stay past even their first year at Wisconsin. It would seem to me that those students who are the most dissatisfied are the ones who are most likely to not make it to the senior level - dropping out or transferring out - and hence would no longer be counted in this survey.</p>
<p>To be clear, I am not trying to single out Wisconsin. I am simply saying that only measuring seniors already introduces a problem of self-selection. A far better way to measure school satisfaction would be to gather data from all matriculated students, including those who later dropped out or transferred out.</p>
<p>Many more UW students are also first time in the family to go to college and many more work during college to pay for it. It's not the silverspoon set.</p>
<p>The COFHE parents survey that I completed really didn't call for a great deal of contemplation. I mean, how long can you really ponder the distinction between "satisfied" and "very satisfied" for each of hundreds of items? It's really more of a stream of consciousness survey, IMO.</p>
<p>The value is the cumulative scores measured against scores for other items from the same school. For example, Swarthmore had an interesting finding for academic advising on their last self-study. Their academic advising score was the highest for any COFHE school, but 27th lowest out of 32 items at Swarthmore. That told them that a) they needed to look at ways to do a better job of advising (and they made a number of changes) and b) that academic advising is a universal problem that was not working effectively for students anywhere and that nobody has really found the answer.</p>
<p>I do think these surveys are useful for colleges to identify their own weaknesses.</p>
<p>Though I see where people point out that this collected data is potentially inaccurate in a number of crucial ways (I'm still hoping somebody contacts the writer of the piece to clarify where this data came from, how it was administered, etc...) I'm trying to see past the numbers and "read" the data.</p>
<p>The way this data "reads" to me is that about 20 percent of the respondents, no matter how they were asked, no matter where they came from, were not satisfied with their <em>Harvard</em> experience, while according to barrons (if you have a link for that, please,) a higher percentage Wisconsin grads (upon graduating) would want to return. Why?</p>
<p>I'm not suggesting there is an answer; it's just something for prospective students and parents to have a hard think about. I think that too often students who are Harvard quality (there are a lot of them here on CC) are shepherded into Harvard without thinking too much if it is the right school for them, while schools like Wisconsin and Swarthmore can offer students a vastly different kind of experience, a kind of experience a smart student might want more than the Harvard experience.</p>
<p>I should add that I don't think that student happiness surveys are the best ways to choose a college, but rather I'm of the "right school, right student" mindset. I knew from spending some time on campus that Harvard was not the right school for me; I didn't apply there. But what about students who don't have that option and who still think that Harvard is the "best" school for them?</p>
<p>I'm not sure that the data is important anyway. If someone went to Harvard for the social scene and was unimpressed by it, but very impressed by the academics, what happens? If he puts "unsatisfied," then it's still not a very accurate description of his time at Harvard. If one is unsatisfied with the, say, dining options, but would have eaten off campus every day even if there were excellent cafeterias, then the dissatisfaction is irrelevant. </p>
<p>Plus, this is for seniors. Some don't go to college for the sake of going to college. In twenty years, maybe 95% of the alumni will really appreciate having gone to Harvard. Personally, I find that number more relevant than the vague satisfaction rating of seniors who may or may not have wanted to complete the survey at all.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Many more UW students are also first time in the family to go to college and many more work during college to pay for it. It's not the silverspoon set.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Then that just points to another problem: why doesn't UW provide better financial aid so that students don't have to work to pay for it? UW has an endowment that is over a billion dollars, so it's not like it's hurting for cash. Or, put another way, if these students aren't going to graduate because they don't have enough money, and you're not going to provide sufficient aid for them, then why even admit these students at all? Are you really helping these students by admitting them in if you know (or can reasonably predict) that they are not going to be able to graduate? Heck, I would argue that they are worse off - for they already don't have a lot of money, and yet you are going to charge them money yet they still will never get a degree. They would have been better off if they had never gone to UW at all, for at least they wouldn't have paid all that tuition for a degree that they will never get. {Incidentally, I think one interesting reform would be to not charge these students any tuition until and unless they actually graduate.} </p>
<p>Harvard now guarantees a full ride for every undergrad whose family makes less than $60k a year. Can UW (or any other public school for that matter) say the same? {Now, granted, one might argue that Harvard just doesn't have that many students whose families are making less than $60k a year, but that's really neither here nor there, for it just shows that if you do happen to be one of those students, you are almost certainly better off going to Harvard.}</p>
<p>Think beyond the name! Where will you be happiest? What's most important is that students think honestly about which colleges provide the right 'fit' for them. It's important to look beyond the 'brand name' and to research thoroughly the academics, commitment to education, mentoring, culture, opportunities, values, social life, etc offered at various colleges. I agree with earlier posts. Many people apply/go to Harvard for the name, yet do not do not do their homework to determine if Harvard is the best fit for them, or a place where they would be happy. Harvard will be a fit for some and not others. </p>
<p>I believe xiggi is right (post #21): the survey noted earlier (1 in 5 grads. . .) was a Crimson survey, not a COFHE survey. COFHE, The Consortium on Financing Higher Education, has 31 member colleges and universities and was founded in 1971 " to examine how selective, private colleges and universities could discuss their commitment to providing exceptional educational opportunities for highly talented students as well as best practices in fiscal management." The results of the COFHE survey are described in the article below:</p>
<p>**News</p>
<p>Class of 2006 Dissatisfied with Advising, Social Experience</p>
<p>As social life marks heat up, seniors still lukewarm on concentration advising**</p>
<p>Published On 10/19/2006 3:48:28 AM
By ALEXANDER D. BLANKFEIN
Crimson Staff Writer</p>
<p>Despite the Colleges recent efforts to improve the undergraduate experience, members of the Class of 2006 said that overall, they were less than satisfied with their advising and social experiences. This continues a three-year trend of dissatisfaction among undergraduates. </p>
<p>I want to see how this data changes once the students have been out of college a couple of years.</p>
<p>At the end of senior year, a certain percentage of the class is going to be thoroughly burned out, disillusioned, and desperate for the light at the end of the tunnel. On top of that, they're dealing with jobhunting, a process which, from what I have seen, often coincides with tremendous self-doubt and second-guessing of one's past decisions. I want to see what they think when they've had a year or two to recover, gain perspective, and live in the post-college world.</p>
<p>^^ Hunh. That's a good point, Jessie-- I know a lot of fresh Ivy League grads who are now dealing with the frustration of getting turned down for jobs or figuring out what they want to "do." That frustration probably leads a lot of them to question the power of their degree's name in the marketplace, and also question what it was that made their experience unusual (if anything).</p>
<p>I think I can add that at least for people in my family, they sort of assumed that because they had a very good name on their diploma and a degree in a "marketable" field, that finding a job would be easy. It wasn't-- most of the career paths my relatives went into didn't care that much about the name on the degree.</p>
<p>UW probably has more students each year from families making under $60,000 than the ENTIRE annual class at Harvard. And we all know even the "full-ride" does not cover all the expenses of college. Is Harvard paying for spending money, clothes, car, gas, Spring Break trips? Finally, $1 Billion over 40,000 students is a long way from $35 Billion over 15,000 students. UW has good finanacial aid for instate kids but they can't cover everything for everyone. Also a recent study found that first time in the family students graduate at lower rates. </p>