<p>Hey all, I was just wondering about your thoughts on the 4-year and 6-year graduation rates of colleges. How important are they, and do they play a factor in the type of colleges you apply to/enroll in?</p>
<p>I feel like that statistic isn’t relevant to most CCers. I think that’s more important to students who think they’ll struggle to graduate from college.</p>
<p>These numbers are obscured by the fact that colleges with lower admission standards / “less prestigious” have a direct correlation with lower graduation rates.
Mine has a 43% overall graduation rate while a college like Berkeley has around 90%.</p>
<p>Comparing top schools to other top schools, you’ll want a higher 4 year graduation rate, I assume, because that means less years in college–less opportunity cost and money spent.</p>
<p>Pay attention to a “retention rate” in regards to if people decide to stick around at the school of choice.</p>
<p>@tangentline that makes sense. The top three schools on my list are Quinnipiac, Hofstra and Monmouth in that order. Their respective retention rates are 85%, 78% and 79%. However, being a New Jersey native, I would rather attend either of the first two, considering they are much more well-known than Monmouth. This, in my opinion, is when prestige matters. As an aspiring international business major, Quinnipiac is a very good rising school, being ranked #1 in up-and-coming northern universities two years in a row by USNWR, and has one of the better business schools in the region, if not the entire country. It also has the pull of being ninety minutes from NYC and two hours from Boston (a city that I have never visited before). Hofstra is a pretty good school, is nationally recognized, has Dutch heritage (I love the Netherlands), and is right on Long Island. Monmouth is a pretty decent school as well, but its main selling point to me is that it’s only minutes from beaches. </p>
<p>How about % of freshmen who live on campus? Does that play a factor?</p>
<p>It’s a slight indicator about the school’s social life. A lower percentage (unless people choose nearby apartments) means that there is a lot of commuting going on. --But really depends on what activities you involve yourself in to get the full (social) experience.
As part of my commuter school experience, the population dies down at night and you get to take part in a lot more quiet atmosphere, yet I have gotten to know quite a few friends that live on campus, so it is nice to stick around and hang out.</p>