“USNWR looks at (A) Pell Grant recipient graduation rates overall and (B) how those rates compare to the school’s overall graduation rate”
If a college were interested in gaming that portion of the ratings, this measurement calculation might create some very unfortunate consequences. Colleges aren’t rated on how many Pell grant recipients they accept, only how well those accepted Pell grant recipients do. A cynic might suggest colleges would take fewer Pell grant recipients, only taking the very best quality to ensure they graduate at the same rate as other students. IOW, this measurement actually provides an incentive against increasing diversity at least in regards to Pell grant recipients.
Edited to add: doing a little more reading on the new USNWR measure of social mobility and apparently there is an adjustment to account for how many Pell grant recipients a school has, so depending on how exactly that works, it might ameliorate some of the disincentive to take other-than-rock-star-Pell applicants mentioned above.
@milee30 According to the Inside Higher Ed article, “Both of those figures are then adjusted for the share of all students who are Pell recipients. So if two colleges have the same Pell graduation rates, but one has a larger share of Pell recipients, the second college would earn more points in the formula.”
As for the mail, I’m not sure how effective the more generic postcards are, but once in a while the UChicago mail is a little more interesting. We received a postcard covered in talking cats that was directed to parents - I thought that one was fun. I think it would be interesting if students had a hand in the marketing in order to catch the attention of the applicants UChicago would most like to reach. For example, I think it would be useful for one of the postcards to list the Uncommon prompts, because they attracted my senior. (I came across them in passing and showed them to her because I knew she’d like them, but I don’t recall seeing them in any marketing material.)
“We hate the rankings, at Chicago we’re ‘above’ worrying about such things…” immediately make a thread about the rankings, university advancement blasts emails out bragging about it
“I love that at Chicago we don’t obsess over the net worth of our students. We only want hard working intellectual and curious students…” here’s 500 words on how I analyzed freshman email surveys to challenge the NY Times’s findings and note that we ARE aggressively recruiting rich kids
@DunBoyer Should you disclose you work for the University in either marketing, advancement or admissions? Over the years I’ve seen an eerily similar template and lexicon you’re using on other forums. I find it hard to believe an undergrad student has this much time on his or her hands or any amount of care in things such as the pursuit of proving Chicago’s student body is getting wealthier.
Maybe next you can share why U of C’s salary data on the gov scorecard is so shockingly low. I bet that data is too old too. Well, why doesn’t U of C have a comprehensive employment survey on their website so we can see just how well the new “different” Chicago grads are doing? https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/
Sometime around 8th Week of this year, a couple of parents stopped me on my way from Harper to Hutch. They had their teenage son and a daughter who looked to be about 10 in tow. They seemed very lost.
“We have a meeting in Rosenwald Hall,” the mother asked. “Do you know where that is?”
“Sure. Right this way,” I replied, and led them around the corner to Rosenwald.
That was the beginning, middle, and end of my career as a campus tour guide.
Consider this full disclosure of my work for UChicago Admissions.
I can vouch for him. I’ve laid eyes on him. I didn’t ask him for his student i.d., but he looked an awfully lot like a U of C student. A careful reading of his oeuvre on this board would show him to be far from a cheerleader. Careful reading is something they teach you at the U of C.
@DunBoyer Isn’t now still the summer break? Your UChicago brain is supposed to shut down after the spring quarter. How dare you use your data analytical skill in social science? What is your major?
Omg @DunBoyer is 100% a student here. Unless you’re going to accuse me of being a university sockpuppet too?
Do you seriously think the administration would send someone to keep complaining about UChicago mental health services???
“I find it hard to believe an undergrad student has this much time on his or her hands or any amount of care in things such as the pursuit of proving Chicago’s student body is getting wealthier.”
I find that his interest in delving into the details, gathering data from multiple sources, making calculations based on the data, performing some intuitive leaps then wanting to discuss that data and his findings in excruciating detail demonstrates that he absolutely is a UChicago student or alumni. That’s the exact type of person the the college has historically served, attracted, nurtured and sought out.
This level of animosity towards a university one’s daughter is about to start in a few weeks is quite unusual. It is my sincere hope that the person who is making these personal attacks is in fact not a parent whose daughter is about to start UChicago but is just here to stir things up a bit for whatever reason. Otherwise, as someone else pointed out, next four years will be extremely difficult.
Yep. I was refraining from saying it, but the lack of accompanying charts and the fact that advanced statistical modeling wasn’t used is the only thing that might arouse suspicion that this isn’t a UChicago student.
A Deputy Director of Admissions, Grace Chapin James, was once upon a time a frequent student poster in this forum. When she started to work for the admissions office other than as a volunteer tour guide, but still as a student, she changed her user name to one that clearly identified her as a student admissions worker. After she graduated and became a full time admissions counselor, she originated the official UChicago CC account (but she hasn’t been responsible for it for years). She returned to Chicago in her current position a few years ago after a number of years working and studying elsewhere.
I have run quantitative analysis of marketing for a big electronics retailer back in the day: direct mail, online, mailing list, SEM, SEO, paid online aggregation services, In-store… the only thing that beats conversion per money spent than DM is SEO - even when DM repsonse rate is <1%. (assuming that the product being sold is solid, the way it is messaged does not even matter).
Not sure if things has changed since then. but for sure one thing DM has going is the lowest cost per piece/contact.