<p>bclintonk, I completely agree with your comments. Hornet and I were both commenting that there seems to be a pretty close correlation between student scores and retention rates at LACs. The LACs that are 93 or above have the students with the highest rank/gpa and test scores. Your thoughts?</p>
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<p>That seems to be generally true for LACs; a little less true for universities. Even among LACs there’s not a perfect correlation. Schools like Holy Cross and Bucknell “punch above their weight,” with retention rates a bit higher than you’d predict just from SAT scores and GPAs. Meanwhile Harvey Mudd, with the strongest SATs and GPAs among the LACs, comes in tied for 18th in retention rate–although at 94.8% it’s not too shabby. Grinnell also underperforms a bit, though at 93.0% it’s not doing too badly.</p>
<p>There’s a chicken-and-egg question here, though. You’d naturally expect the students with the strongest stats to adjust most quickly, on average, to the rigors of college academics. But it could also be in part because the top LACs provide the most attractive and supportive combination of academic and social life that they attract the top students. It’s hard to say how happy those same students would be at a school further down the pecking order. We just don’t know whether students are leaving the not-quite-as-highly-ranked LACs in larger numbers for academic reasons, or because of social or cultural reasons, lack of academic or personal support, frustration growing out of lack of institutions resources, or whatever. </p>
<p>Among universities, what’s most striking to me is that the top 5 publics (UC Berkeley, UVA, UCLA, Michigan, and UNC Chapel Hill) do extremely well in freshman retention, about as well as the top private universities and the top LACs—despite much larger classes (and therefore far more students to keep happy), less financial resources per student, larger classes, higher S/F ratios, and generally weaker stats at the bottom of their freshman classes. They must be doing something right! There’s a pretty steep dropoff among public universities, however, which suggests broad-brushed generalizations about what life is like at public universities in general should be taken with a huge grain of salt.</p>
<p>Although Harvey Mudd is classified as an LAC, it really is difficult to compare them with other LAC’s for retention rate. The options for majors are very limited and focused. I’d venture a guess that a significant portion of those that leave do so because they decide that they no longer want a major in what Mudd offers. (But not all - some students discover that they don’t want to work as hard as a Mudd degree requires.)</p>
<p>I’m surprised UT’s is that high, given it’s size!</p>
<p>OTOH, BYU’s is understandably low, given the large number of students who go missions during their time there.</p>
<p>Bclintok, I think your observation about the great differences among public universities is very apt and wonder what the explanation would be, not just for retention, but for graduation rates.</p>
<p>Your earlier observation, however that “Assuming that 4 years to degree is the norm…works for most LACS with their relatively simple, standard-issue 4-year curricula, but it just doesn’t reflect the complex realities of undergrad education at major research universities” requires more support. The list above is filled with major research unviersities with very high 4 year graduation rates. In addition, the curricula at the LACs I have seen were not simpler than the curricula at the major research universities I attended and, in many cases, there are more requirements to fulfill, which often causes students to take an extra year. </p>
<p>In addition to the correlation between selectivity and retention, it would be useful to see whether the percentage of low income; first time college students; and students new to America correlates with retention and 4/6 year graduation rates.</p>
<p>Your reference to students in 3/2 engineering, 6 year BA/MD, etc programs is helpful, although that percentage of students may be small–and are you sure that the students in, for example, 6 year BA/MD or 5 year BA/MBA programs are not counted among 4 year graduates?</p>