<p>Hi, my son is a junior and we have just finished visiting the majority of his top choice colleges. As we start to mull the process of which schools he should apply to, the subject of graduation rates has come up. </p>
<p>His three top choices - all of them top LACs, and I mean the best of the best, have 4 year graduation rates in the 50-65% range. Six year rates closer to 90 at 2 of them, but still only in the 70s at one.</p>
<p>My question is - what do I do with this information? Obviously my son wants to graduate in 4 years so he can go on to law school or whatever. But how seriously should I consider the info - is this usually because students can't get the classes they need to fit into their schedule, or is it simply a matter of students transferring (and if so, why?). Not sure the schools will give the most accurate info if it is damning, so I guess I need to know how I can find out the reasons, and how much weight we should give this.</p>
<p>I am shocked, these are really great schools, the Ivy League equivalents of LACs.</p>
<p>Grad rates can mean different things…</p>
<p>1) kids change majors
2) kids don’t take full loads (15+ credits per semester)
3) kids drop classes
4) kids won’t take classes at inconvenient times
5) classes are hard to get
6) kids don’t carefully look at what’s req’d to graduate.
7) some kids work/commute so they can only go part-time.</p>
<p>If kids are careful, they can graduate in 4 years. My son did, and my younger son will, too.</p>
<p>According to the US News data…</p>
<p>No liberal arts college in the top 15 (remove the academies) has a 6 year grad rate below 90%. Maybe only 1 in the top 50 is below 80%. I am not sure what you were expecting, but these are great numbers. If the school is in the top 50, then I would personally give it zero weight.</p>
<p>Garduation rates are almost exactly correlated to the overall wealth of the student body.</p>
<p>50-65% would be too low for me. It is most likely not enough course offerings, so students couldn´t fullfil their graduation requirements. This is a very important factor to look into, even if some schools are cheaper, if you end up paying for 5 years instead of 4 then it´s not necessary cheaper.</p>
<p>4yr graduation rates
Colgate : 83%
Williams: 93%
Amherst:8%
Middlebury: 83%
Hamilton: 83%
Pomona: 89%</p>
<p>These schools are lower:</p>
<p>Haverford 55%
Oberlin 49%
Bard 65%</p>
<p>Haystack, those are 6 year rates. As I mentioned in my post, those are higher but the 4 year rates at the schools my son is most interested in are below 65%. He wants to graduate in 4 years, not 6 years!</p>
<p>ponyboad: where are you getting your data? I just looked up Haverford:</p>
<p>Graduation and Retention Rates:
First Year Student Retention (full-time students): 96%
4-Year Graduation Rate: 86%
6-Year Graduation Rate: 92%</p>
<p>For Haverford, both the USNWR and Kiplinger sites report the 4 year graduation rate as 87%. Kiplinger’s 4 year graduation rate for almost all of their top 20 LACs is above 80%. [Best</a> Values in Private Colleges, 2011-12](<a href=“Kiplinger | Personal Finance News, Investing Advice, Business Forecasts”>Kiplinger | Personal Finance News, Investing Advice, Business Forecasts)</p>
<p>I don’t think the 4 year graduation rate is usually a very useful discriminator when we’re comparing the same kind of college. The one selective LAC I can think of that has a 4 year rate far lower than its peers is Reed College (~59%). One possible explanation is that it is considered an unusually difficult college. For some students, that would be a problem, for others it might be desirable.</p>
<p>So I would not worry about this number unless a school is way out of line with others you’re considering. Even then, investigate but don’t necessarily rule it out.</p>
<p>You can’t be looking at Ivy League caliber LACs if the 4 year rates are in the 50/60 % range. Williams, Bowdoin, and Amherst are all right at the 90% range for a 4 year rate.</p>
<p>Again, just about anything in the top 50 will have a very reasonable 4 year grad rate. Reed is an exception and anyone that knows about Reed knows why. There are lots of reasons for a lower rate. Very rarely is it because of a lack of course offerings at a top 50 LAC. Kids change majors, take a semester off, etc etc. Your kid can easily graduate in 4 years from any top 50 LAC.</p>
<p>Just some quick examples…</p>
<p>We are looking at Centre College (42 ranked LAC by US News), their 4 year rate is over 80%.</p>
<p>Rhodes College (ranked somewhere around 50), 4 year grad rate of 76.</p>
<p>According to Oberlin’s Common Data Set, their most recent 4 year rate is 75%.</p>
<p>You are finding Ivy caliber LACs in the 50/60% range???</p>
<p>I don´t think OP´s source is correct.</p>
<p>This is from IPEDS</p>
<p>College 4 Yr Grad Rate 5 Yr Grad Rate % Admitted
Pomona College 91 94 15
Amherst College 90 94 15
Swarthmore College 89 92 16
Claremont McKenna College 84 93 17
Middlebury College 84 90 17
Alma College 48 61 19
Washington and Lee University 92 93 19
Bowdoin College 90 93 20
Williams College 91 95 20
Wesleyan University 89 94 22
Harvey Mudd College 80 85 23
Vassar College 90 93 24
Pitzer College 74 78 26
Haverford College 55 59 26
Barnard College 79 87 28
Hamilton College 84 88 29
Davidson College 89 91 29
Carleton College 89 93 31
Oberlin College 49 56 31
Bucknell University 90 92 31
Bates College 84 87 32
Wellesley College 84 89 33
Colgate University 83 87 33
University of Richmond 81 87 33
Colorado College 81 86 34
Colby College 86 89 34
College of the Holy Cross 90 93 35
Bard College 66 74 35
Connecticut College 84 86 37
Spelman College 65 71 38
Scripps College 80 82 39
St Lawrence University 78 82 39
Kenyon College 85 86 39
Washington & Jefferson College 66 70 39
Gettysburg College 82 85 40
Occidental College 80 84 42
Union College 74 83 42
Lafayette College 87 89 42
Rhodes College 76 79 42
Trinity College 78 85 43
Cornell College 61 66 43
Grinnell College 84 87 43
Macalester College 85 87 43
Reed College 60 79 43
Willamette University 71 77 43
Franklin and Marshall College 80 87 45
Agnes Scott College 59 66 46
Smith College 78 82 47
Skidmore College 80 83 47
Whitman College 80 85 47</p>
<p>There are all kinds of reasons why the graduation rate might be less than 90%. Some flunk out, some take a semester off to work, some change majors. And in general, the “better” the students admitted, the better the graduation rate. That’s why the rankings have started looking at predicted graduation rates based on student characteristics and actual graduation rates.</p>
<p>I don’t think the first two numbers for Oberlin are correct.<br>
The Oberlin CDS, USNWR, and Kiplinger all show 4-yr rates in the 70s.</p>
<p>Yes, the IPEDS list was the one I saw. Is this data incorrect?</p>
<p>Sorry I’m coming to the party a bit late here, but I thought I’d weigh in since this is one of my areas of expertise. </p>
<p>First thing to know about graduation rates is that they are almost entirely a product of institutional wealth and student ability. If you have a zillion dollar endowment and a 25th percentile SAT scores of 2100, (Williams, e.g.), then you’re going to graduate darned near everyone. By the same token, if you’re poor and/or you take a chance on kids that are less well prepared socially and academically, you’ll graduate fewer of them.</p>
<p>Note two things: 1. It’s <em>almost</em>, not entirely. 2. Nothing there speaks to the chances of an individual student graduating from any given school.</p>
<p>If you want to know what schools are operationally superior to others, then you look at their graduation rates given the resources that they have to work with. The differences among liberal arts colleges are not huge. If you want to see a list of how well liberal arts colleges do at graduating students given their resources, read [Research</a> in Higher Education, Volume 51, Number 3 - SpringerLink<a href=“though%20you’ll%20either%20have%20to%20buy%20it%20or%20get%20access%20through%20your%20library”>/url</a>. Here’s who I found to be the best of the best with respect to graduating students (the numbers are IPEDS unit IDs):</p>
<p>164465 Amherst College
189097 Barnard
156295 Berea College
153144 Coe College
166124 College of the Holy Cross
162654 Goucher College
232256 Hampden-Sydney College
170301 Hope College
213251 Juniata College
153834 Luther College
214175 Muhlenberg College
231059 St. Michaels College
174844 St. Olaf College
197133 Vassar College
216667 Washington & Jefferson
164216 Washington College
149781 Wheaton College (IL)
168342 Williams College </p>
<p>If you’re interested in research universities, there’s a similar article and list at <a href=“http://web.wm.edu/economics/wp/cwm_wp24.pdf[/url]”>http://web.wm.edu/economics/wp/cwm_wp24.pdf](<a href=“http://www.springerlink.com/content/g1u81p17282v6143/]Research”>http://www.springerlink.com/content/g1u81p17282v6143/)</a></p>