<p>Another thing to consider is the classes that came into Oberlin in 2005 and 2006 came at the tail-end of Nancy Dye’s presidency and her resignation–a pretty rough time for Oberlin. Will be interesting to see what happens to the 2007 and forward classes.</p>
<p>There’s an obvious statistical error in the data reported on the chronicle’s website, and I don’t know if it’s the case elsewhere…but it shows 0 men graduating in 4 years for a certain year and drags down the average substantially. </p>
<p>Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using CC</p>
<p>From information provided by Oberlin: [url=<a href=“http://oberlin.edu/instres/irhome/]Institutional”>http://oberlin.edu/instres/irhome/]Institutional</a> Research<a href=“under%20electronic%20data%20book”>/url</a>, graduation rates appear to be in the 81-85% range but those numbers include both con and college students. Since con students are very likely to go on tour or find professional work before completing degrees, that makes sense to me.</p>
<p>In an attempt to see what effect the con kids might have on the totals, I did a little back of the envelope calculation. Using the Boston Conservatory to get a conservatory-specific grad rate (54% in both 4 years <em>and</em> 6 years). IF Oberlin con students had similar rates, then an 81% overall graduation rate would mean that the college rate is more like 86%.</p>
<p>Agree with the last two comments and I’ll echo advice I got in my own similarly skeptical thread on this topic that has proven true: it all comes down to the student’s personal choices. </p>
<p>Whether a particular student will graduate in four years at Oberlin is almost entirely a function of the student …which a parent has superior knowledge about.</p>
<p>If my child was not likely to get it done in four years – for a variety of reasons, from being very exploratory to being focused on practical ways to serve the world and not hung up on getting a degree to do so, to coming in with no AP credits and a good possibility of wanting to shift majors midstream several times across disciplines with very little overlap – and if, in cases such as those, I was also strongly committed to “four and out” for my student, then, yes, I might scratch Oberlin and some other (perhaps all) liberal arts institutions off my child’s list.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that these statistics are about 6 or 7 students out of 100. On a personal level, they matter if (a) you think your child is likely to hit that narrow band of students (in my case, I told Junior he does not have that option and he has changed majors, experimented in other disciplines and will have no difficulty graduating “on time”) OR (b) the factors that lead to that difference make for an overhall hostile and oppressive learning environment for a much greater share of students who end up graduating “on time” despite an awful experience (for which I have seen no evidence, anecdotally or otherwise).</p>
<p>The concern here is best addressed by the parent looking at their own child and sizing them up far better than it will be figured out by burrowing ever deeper into statistics and pools of data about large groups of people who are not their child.</p>
<p>Correction: Agree with comments #39 and #40 – which appeared on my iDevice to be the last two comments when I was tapping my comment above.</p>
<p>Are you really suggesting that the low 4 year graduation rate is due to the Conservatory students? The College has 2200 students enrolled, the Conservatory 800. Of these 3000 students, 200 are enrolled in both the Conservatory and the College. It is true that most of the Double Degree students need 5 years to complete their degrees and it is true that Conservatory students may leave for some of the reasons stated in the previous post. But the math doesn’t add up. There are about 40 Double Degree students in each class year, or less than 5% of the total enrollment in a given class year of 750 students. The abysmal 4 year graduation rate of somewhere between 50% and 70%, depending on the source, can’t be caused primarily by the Conservatory students. Let’s be generous and assume the four year graduation rate is 70%. That means of the 750 students enrolled in their fourth year, 225 are not graduating. This is over one quarter of the total enrollment in the Conservatory and far in excess of the 40 Double Degree students per class year. Face it - with an overall 6 year graduation rate of 88% and a 4 year rate below 70%, students in the College are simply not finishing their degree requirements on time. Maybe they take breaks, maybe they switch majors, maybe they have to retake classes. Whatever the reason, it is very concerning and the lack of clear disclosure from the Administration is even more concerning. The Administration should be disclosing retention and 4 year graduation rates for students enrolled in the College and the Conservatory separately and also 5 year graduation rates for the Double Degree students.</p>
<p>Hey omomma – your kid is leaving or already gone. Why don’t you follow he/she/it out the door? Your incessant bad-mouthing and negativity needs to find another forum. I’m sure that by next year this time you’ll be polluting another school’s board with your higher education expertise. Maybe you need to smoke a joint and mellow out a bit? You’ve worn thin in these parts.</p>