Why aren’t more people looking at admission rate and graduation rate in tandem. Of course the top tier schools have high grad rates. But, for the “less selective schools” I feel like people ignore the graduation rates. In the college search for “average” kid #2, we are focusing on schools with a 70%+ acceptance rate and a 70%+ graduation rate. We’ve found that UNH, Quinnipiac, Saint Anselm, Bryant, UMASS Amherst, and James Madison fall into that bucket. Any other schools out there doing right (70%/70% +) by the “average” kiddo?
Elon has 73% acceptance and 80% graduation rates.
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Love it! Go Elon!
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Beloit College is 67/75
Juniata 74/78
Centre 68/84
My suspicion is that all of the CTCLs have that profile
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The CTCL always seems like a very small list of very small colleges. My oldest wanted a big school (15k plus) and middle wants a smaller school (2k plus), but something that still has school spirit and competitive sports. I feel like there are a lot of schools doing this amazing work and not maximizing their advertising potential if they meet those stats.
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U of Iowa 86/73
Michigan state 83/80
I think a lot of state schools will fit the bill.
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the tricky part for the bigger state schools is the grad rate…for example, the non-Amherst UMASS programs cannot get over a 70% grad rate, doesn’t mean they are bad, but definitely not an easy thing to achieve in a population that has competing priorities that aren’t always in line with a 4-6 year undergrad graduation rate.
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My alma mater, The University of Missouri, 75/73. Go Tigers! 
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A caution would be that a student who barely got admitted to (for example) University of Oregon with an 86% admission rate is less likely to be among the 73% who eventually graduate, compared to the top-end student who goes there.
University of Mississippi barely misses your criteria with a 96% admission rate and 68% graduation rate. But a student who got admitted with a 2.0 HS GPA and 18 ACT does not have the same chance of graduating as one with a 4.0 HS GPA and 36 ACT.
A student’s personal chance of graduating has much more to do with the student’s personal characteristics (academic strength and ability to afford the college) than anything else.
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Right, but the point is that the school with the higher admissions rate will be accepting more of those sub 4.0 kids and still graduating over 70%. Where as a school with a sub 40-50% acceptance rate will automatically have more of those 4.0 kids who are already self motivated to graduate. These 70/70 schools are doing more for the average kid.
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That’s not really clear. Many ‘Average’ students can graduate within 4 or 6 years too. (Six years is the officially reported DOE metric).
I expect that a significant proportion of those not graduating within 6 years at 70%+ acceptance rate schools are due to financial/affordability reasons, as these schools don’t meet full need.
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Susquehanna in Pennsylvania has acceptance and graduation rates in the 70% range.
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The overall graduation rate can be affected by SO many things that it is hard to compare apples to apples looking at the number for the entire school.
My D22’s school produces a report and numbers can vary a great deal within the school.
For instance, the overall grad rate is at 70%, but the Honors College grad rate is somewhere like 85% or more. Just checked - it is over 90%. Rates for Pell Grant recipients and under-represented minorities are lower 70% — unless they are in the Honors College. Rates for students in the College of Engineering are higher than in other colleges. And I don’t know how many students are traditional on-campus students versus the growing segment of 100% online students.
So the number at a particular school can be a reflection of the number of engineering versus non-engineering students it has, the percent of the student body that receives Pell Grants, etc. Because that can vary so much school-to-school, it is hard to do a side-by-side comparison.
And now the cohorts will reflect COVID years, which could skew the results more based on geography, school policy, number of international students who withdrew, etc.
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Gonzaga has an 85% graduation rate and a 70% acceptance rate.
U of Dayton’s is 81% and Miami Ohio is also 81%. Both have high acceptance rates.
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It’s certainly not a perfect predictor, but it’s an at a glance metric that we’ve found valuable while looking at colleges for our kids. Always other factors, especially at large state schools. But it’s a decent metric that I don’t think a lot of people focus on.
Less selective schools are usually more affordable than highly selective schools which enables kids who have to work to get their degree. Need based Financial Aid is rarely calculated on actual affordability for families, but on parameters which basically expect parents to spend more than is realistic on college. And the answer colleges tell youis just to take out 6 figure loans for undergrad degrees.
If you can afford for your kids to graduate in 4 years, chances are they will. If your kid needs to work enough to not be able to take full semesters or do internships, it’s more difficult. Doesn’t mean the education is different, just that it might take longer
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My guess is for students that are having trouble with the academics many likely leave the COE first to try to save themselves.
Yes. Econ, Finance, Urban Planning, Marketing, Geology… one of these is frequently a “next stop” for a kid who isn’t cutting it in engineering.
And they are often shocked to discover how “mathy” these other majors are, since that’s frequently the issue in engineering.
If you have a kid who has decent study skills, can balance a social life and academics, won’t have to work 20 hours a week to keep him/herself fed and housed, AND knows how to self-advocate- chances are solid that kid will graduate on time. When any of these factors fall apart (especially if the parents have been essentially the kids administrative assistant, life coach, organizer, etc.) well-- it’s only November! Plenty of time to work on these skills.
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