Actually it’s the minority of colleges / universities that have graduation rates that top 75% and very very few public schools do. So 71% grad rate isn’t bad.
@Blossom I stated that low graduation rate is directly related to the high transfer rate. Do you disagree? With a 24% transfer rate, it’s surprising they have a 70+% graduation rate.
I used engineering as an example, since it’s not offered at NCF. But in more general terms, I should have said students looking for a standard curriculum, vs. NCF’s unique approach. NCF’s (sometimes very rigorous) approach isn’t for everyone, and sometimes kids change their mind.
Of course, students could transfer for a host of reasons, struggling in class, health, financial, home sick, but I don’t think it’s a reach to assume some students have second thoughts about NCF’s system. Especially a system that doesn’t offer standard grades and can seem overwhelming at times.
Here’s a recent article that delves into the question NCF enrollment and retention…
http://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20140909/enrollment-rises-at-new-college
@katliamom, we’re in Massachusetts and my son applied to NCF. He liked Bennington when he visited there, so NCF seemed like a similar fit. In the end, he decided that both Bennington and New College weren’t quite the experience he wanted, so he is at Oberlin.
The article linked in #21 is interesting. It quotes a student saying a lot of first year students transfer because classes are so darn hard and that there are so many geniuses at NCF. Then, a few paragraphs down we have this:
Another emphasis is on strengthening writing skills. New College’s curriculum is writing-intensive and many students “have difficulty adjusting to the standards, conventions, and expectations of college-level writing,” according to the improvement plan.
I guess the geniuses have trouble writing. The word genius is being used very generously here if anyone asks.
The NCF fact book, which is really an expanded common data set.
https://www.ncf.edu/about/departments-and-offices/institutional-research-assessment/fact-book/
Based on GPA, class rank and test scores, NCF freshman are comparable to FSU’s enrolled freshman.
http://www.flbog.edu/about/_doc/cod/asa/admission_2015/Matrix.pdf
Isn’t NCF the school where the neo Nazi heir apparent was befriended by the Jewish students and came to change his POV about white supremacy? Now, that’s a college that changes lives!
Many years ago, I took my sons to a CTCL fair. It was quite well done. Nearly all of the schools in the book that Loren Pope wrote about were there, so we had a chance to visit with their representatives. My older son actually had one of those schools on his final list for colleges – it offered him full tuition for all four years. A National Merit Scholar, he chose a different, larger school because he got into a prestigious honors program. My younger son applied and was accepted with nice merit money from another group member. He and his dad toured the college, and while he really liked it, he thought it was a little too liberal arts for his tastes, and went elsewhere.
Still, there are some excellent, smaller schools that belong to the group. I got my masters at one of them.
No book can predict your child’s experience. You still need to vet colleges, understand how they work for their needs-or not. It’s the “Caveat Emptor.”
I think if we had discovered some of the colleges on D1’s list had lower grad rates or some other high dissatisfaction, I would have been concerned, too. But we were much more focused on fit and where she would be empowered to grow, challenge herself and become well educated. I never looked at % employed post-college or those other stats.
Discovering some interesting colleges doesn’t mean he wrote the book as a public service. If that’s cynical, then necessarily so. You have to admit calling some place a CTCL attracts a lot of attention.
Have to agree with thumper, all colleges have the potential to change lives, if you find the right ones to target.
When it comes to percentage of grads who go on to get a PhD, win a prestigious student award, or get in to top professional schools, NCF is at an elite/near-elite level (which is why I consider it a Near-Ivy).
It is pretty unique, though; the curriculum is like grad-school-lite and being so tiny, there are a limited number of majors (they just recently started offering CS as a major), so it’s certainly not for everyone, hence why people transfer and the graduation rate is in the 70’s.
On a more general point, numbers don’t lie, but they certainly may be misleading if you don’t consider the context.
BTW, NCF evidently is too small so the Federal scorecard doesn’t display it’s average earnings, but it does show that 43% earn more than a HS grad, which is only slightly worse than Oberlin and Reed (both at 50%) and better than Bennington (33%).
I believe the college scorecard earnings data is 5 years out, which may be pretty misleading for those who get PhDs (such as this guy:
https://www.theguardian.com/profile/chris-arnade, who has done pretty well financially but probably was making close to nothing as a physics PhD).
https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?262129-New-College-of-Florida
https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?204501-Oberlin-College
https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?209922-Reed-College
https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?230816-Bennington-College