Public Vs. Private

barrons · August 10, 2007, 12:01am

When half of the people graduate you can't tell me that "these people aren't going to graduate anyway". Obviously many of them do and they are deserving of that opportunity. The ones who don't are hardly ruined for life. If they were not really meant to go to college they can do something else. I don't think the plumbers union will hold a year or two of college against you nor the local Ford dealer. You make it sound like some death sentence when in reality it is something that the majority of Americans don't do--graduate from college.

Serving all the public means as many as they can reasonably handle. You can't have a single campus with 400,000 students in California but you figure a way to do it within a planned system which Cal and most states do. In Wisconsin if you don't make it into UW the first time you can go to a two year campus and if you do decently you are in UW as a junior. Same with UCB and the CCs in Cali. So you get even another shot.

Your glib response about just taking the students that they can fully provide aid to is at the same time non-responsive and arrogant. Loans are aid but some people prefer to pay their own way as they can afford it so they don't graduate in debt. Maybe they don't plan to come out and make $50,000 a year after college. Lots of public grads do things like join the Peace Corps (UCB #1 and UW #2 in volunteers) which does not pay much. Or they plan to go to grad school or they plan to just travel for a year or two. Hard to do that with $40,000 in debt hanging over your head. It's a tougher life when mommy and daddy aren't picking up the tab for everything

jack · August 10, 2007, 12:49am

Good grief.

sakky: I only briefly scanned these posts (too long), but I just want to make one point here. When talking about transfers, I agree with barrons. Just wanted to say, though, that I did mention publics taking transfers in as well (moreso than do privates). My point was that when people transfer in to another school, they often lose credits--which may also impact graduation rates (though, admittedly, I don't know if students who transfer in are considered in graduation rate data).

As far as some of your other questions responding to my earlier comments-- I only briefly looked at what you wrote-- but I think I already answered many of those questions. Sorry if they weren't the answers you wanted to hear.

I'm done here. Agree with barrons-- those long ranting posts wear me out. Get a grip.

jack · August 10, 2007, 1:21am

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Similarly, the majority of the applicants to UCLA, Virginia, UNC, and Michigan are not admitted. "Serve all the public", you say? They don't even serve most of the public who apply.

[/quote]

Oh, just wanted to add here, too, that the UNC system has 16 campuses total. Not everyone who applies to the flagship will get in; this is true. The UNC system does have 15 other campuses to which they can apply, many of them offering programs that the others (including the flagship) do not (ie, engineering, marine science). In addition, NC has an excellent 2 year community college system with an open door policy that is also strongly supported by the State; students can also transfer in to the UNC flagship (and/or the other campuses) from these community colleges. I assume other systems work in much the same way.

You don't understand why the publics would admit students who might not do well academically (based on high school performance), and complain about that--yet you also want them to have an open door policy. Make up your mind. You can't have it both ways.

At any rate, I really am done now.

sakky · August 10, 2007, 1:26am

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When half of the people graduate you can't tell me that "these people aren't going to graduate anyway". Obviously many of them do and they are deserving of that opportunity

[/quote]

I think you have managed to confuse what I am talking about. Nobody ever said that we should not admit any students into public schools at all. What I am talking about is figuring out who is highly likely to not graduate, and then simply not admit them in the first place.

For example, as a first bet, I would strongly bet that those people who flunk out of Berkeley engineering are highly likely to have been at the low tail-end of science and math aptitude of the admitted Berkeley engineering class, for the simple reason that many (probably most) people who flunk out of Berkeley engineering do so because they don't have the proper technical background. If that proves to be the case, then the answer is to not admit those people in the future.

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I don't think the plumbers union will hold a year or two of college against you nor the local Ford dealer. You make it sound like some death sentence

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It's not a death sentence, but it is hardly the same as having a degree. Like it or not, most employers with good jobs require that you have a degree. Not a few years of college, not X number of credits. They want to see a degree. To them, you either have the degree, or you don't. Like it or not, that's how the system works. You can't go up to them and tell them that you "almost" have a degree. You either have it, or you don't.

Let me put it to you this way. If colleges didn't give out degrees, how many people would go? Exactly. People go to college to get a degree. If you don't get one, then you're not getting what you set out to get. You are spending time and money for basically nothing in return. How does that help anybody?

Like it or not, we live in a world where you need a degree. With certain exceptions, i.e. entrepreneurship, sports, entertainment, and a few others - in order to get a good job, you need a degree. It's a checkbox that HR departments will expect you to fill. If you don't have a degree, that's a problem. I'm not defending the system. I'm just telling you what the system is like. Going to college and not graduating is not a good thing.

It is especially bad if you actually flunk out of college, for if you flunk out, not only will you not get a degree from that school, but you will find it difficult to get a degree from ANY reputable school. That's because reputable schools shy away from admitting transfer students who flunked out of their previous school. The upshot is that going to Berkeley (or some other rigorous public school) and flunking out is actually WORSE than not going to college at all. If you didn't go at all, then at least you'd have a pristine academic record and you can freely apply to other schools. In contrast, by going to Berkeley and flunking out, you've established an academic record of failure that other colleges and employers may hold against you. It's not fair, it's not right, but that's the way it is. Sad but true.

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when in reality it is something that the majority of Americans don't do--graduate from college.

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Yeah, many Americans don't graduate from college. But that doesn't make it a good thing. The majority of Americans doesn't exercise enough. The majority of Americans doesn't eat healthily. These are all undesirable outcomes, even though they are true of the majority.

That Americans go to college but don't graduate is a major drag on the economy, as they have wasted significant time and money without getting that degree.

Look, we can't force Americans to exercise or eat better. If that's what they want to do, then so be it. But what you don't want to do is encourage Americans to exercise less or eat worse. Similarly, you don't want to encourage Americans to attend colleges that they are not actually going to graduate from.

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Serving all the public means as many as they can reasonably handle.

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And what does that word "reasonably" mean? That's in the eye of the beholder. Berkeley has plenty of courses with open seats. Only a small percentage of Berkeley's courses actually get filled to capacity. So does that mean that Berkeley can "reasonably" accomodate more students?

Like I said, it's all in the eye of the beholder. The person who applies to Berkeley and gets rejected is not going to think that Berkeley is being reasonable and should be able to accomodate him. Yet the fact remains that Berkeley rejects 75% of its applicants.

[quote]
You can't have a single campus with 400,000 students in California but you figure a way to do it within a planned system which Cal and most states do. In Wisconsin if you don't make it into UW the first time you can go to a two year campus and if you do decently you are in UW as a junior. Same with UCB and the CCs in Cali. So you get even another shot.

[/quote]

And you get another shot with the private schools too. There are people who do very well in community colleges and head off to the Ivies or Stanford. Furthermore, there are plenty of people in the California community colleges who finish their associates and still can't get into any of the UC's, or even any of the CalStates. The upshot is that the public schools do not serve as a full backstop for all of the people who want bachelor's degrees, nor do they have to be. Not everybody in California who wants to get into a public 4-year school will actually get into one. Any way you cut it, whether public or private, there will be some people in California who want bachelor's degrees but can't get one.

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Your glib response about just taking the students that they can fully provide aid to is at the same time non-responsive and arrogant.

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And your response to just allowing status quot to continue is, I would argue, equally glib and arrogant. People are getting hurt by the present system, and you evidently don't care.

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Loans are aid but some people prefer to pay their own way as they can afford it so they don't graduate in debt.

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So then don't give loans. Give grants. Or, here's a better idea - * schools should only charge those students who actually successfully graduate*. If you don't graduate, then you don't get charged (but of course you don't get a degree either). That would remove one of my major objections to the present system - that students are spending time and money and still not getting degrees. It would also encourage schools to think twice about who they should admit, knowing that if they admit somebody who won't graduate, then the school won't get paid. Right now these non-graduates are basically akin to free money for the school. {Granted, it's not really "free" money as the school does have to provide educational services to that student until he drops/flunks out, but it's akin to "cheap" money.}

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Maybe they don't plan to come out and make $50,000 a year after college. Lots of public grads do things like join the Peace Corps (UCB #1 and UW #2 in volunteers) which does not pay much.

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Then that simply points to another solution - loan forgiveness to those graduates who take on public-sector jobs. Think of it like the Montgomery GI Bill, but for NGO's and ex-post as opposed to ex-ante (i.e. you get loans forgiven via an NGO ex-post as opposed to building up a fund ex-ante through the GI Bill).

But again, what is not acceptable is the status quo of people spending time and effort at a school from which they will not graduate. That is a significant waste of societal resources. If public schools want to become better, then we need to tackle this problem.

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Or they plan to go to grad school or they plan to just travel for a year or two. Hard to do that with $40,000 in debt hanging over your head.

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Well this, I'm afraid I can't support. If you want to go to grad school or travel, then that's on your dime and rightfully so. Especially if you want to travel. I've never travelled for more than a month. Since when is 1-2 years of travel an entitlement? Most Americans have never done that.

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It's a tougher life when mommy and daddy aren't picking up the tab for everything

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Exactly right, and life is even tougher when you've squandered precious time and money in attending a school that you didn't graduate from. THAT is the point. I am trying to prevent that. If a guy isn't going to make it, then we should not let him waste his resources in trying. Or, at the very least, we should at least tell him that, statistically speaking, he is probably not going to make it at this school, and then let him decide for himself whether he still wants to go. Just like we publicly inform people that smoking and drinking are dangerous, we should also tell those people who are unlikely to graduate about their status. Then at least people would have fair warning. That's a whole lot better than suffering a rude awakening in, say, Berkeley engineering, where a large chunk of the class will flunk out.

[quote]
Good grief.

sakky: I only briefly scanned these posts (too long), but I just want to make one point here. When talking about transfers, I agree with barrons. Just wanted to say, though, that I did mention publics taking transfers in as well (moreso than do privates). My point there was that when people transfer to another school, they often lose credits--which may also impact graduation rates (though, admittedly, I don't know if students who transfer in are considered in graduation rate data).

As far as some of your other questions responding to my comments-- I only briefly looked at what you wrote-- but I think I already answered many of those questions. Sorry if they weren't the answers you wanted to hear.

I'm done here. Agree with barrons-- those long ranting posts wear me out.

[/quote]

Look, jack. If you don't like my posts, then don't read them. Nobody has a gun to your head. But don't complain. You always have the choice to not read.

sakky · August 10, 2007, 1:35am

[quote]
Oh, just wanted to add here, too, that the UNC system has 16 campuses total. Not everyone who applies to the flagship will get in; this is true. The UNC system does have 15 other campuses to which they can apply, many of them offering programs that the others (including the flagship) do not (ie, engineering, marine science). In addition, NC has an excellent 2 year community college system with an open door policy that is also strongly supported by the State; students can also transfer in to the UNC flagship (and/or the other campuses) from these community colleges. I assume other systems work in much the same way.

[/quote]

So what? At the end of the day, in any state, there will be some people who want bachelor's degrees who will not be admitted to ANY public 4-year school in that state.

[quote]
You don't understand why the publics would admit students who might not do well academically (based on high school performance), and complain about that--yet you also want them to have an open door policy. Make up your mind. You can't have it both ways.

[/quote]

Uh, come again? I don't want anything "both ways". I am simply pointing out that the flagship public schools cannot claim to serve "all the public". They do not, and we all know it. They serve only a minority of the public. But that makes them little different from the private schools. Not everybody can go to Berkeley. Not everybody can go to UNC. Not everybody can go to Michigan. Not everybody can go to Virginia. Inevitably, there are some people in every state that want to attend the flagship state school but can't get in.

If anything, it is you and barrons that seem to want things both ways. You say that public schools are supposed to serve the public, but then you have no problem with the flagship schools serving only a minority of the public. I think YOU need to make up your mind. The only public schools that can be truly said to be serving all of the public are the open-admission community colleges and that is because, by definition, they exclude nobody. ANY school that serves to exclude some people is, by definition, not really serving all of the public. For example, like I said, not everybody in California who attends a community college will be allowed to later attend a UC or a CSU to get their bachelor's.

So the fact that Berkeley doesn't admit everybody who wants to go is not qualitatively different from the fact that Stanford doesn't admit everybody who wants to go. The difference is only in *degree<a href="no%20pun%20intended">/i</a>. Berkeley admits MORE students than Stanford does. But Berkeley still rejects the vast majority. Hence, while Stanford doesn't serve all of the public (and doesn't claim to), Berkeley doesn't serve all of the public either. Qualitatively speaking, what's the difference?

jack · August 10, 2007, 1:45am

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If you don't like my posts, then don't read them

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Haha. I don't; I haven't; and I won't in future. Again, get a grip.

Also, your posts would have more impact (and people might actually read them) if you could manage to make them more succinct-- perhaps on the pithy side. Good luck with that.

sakky · August 10, 2007, 4:54am

[quote]
Haha. I don't; I haven't; and I won't in future. Again, get a grip.

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For a guy who keeps saying that he's done, you seem to have quite the penchant for returning. I find it quite odd indeed that you would reply to my posts telling me that you're not going to read my posts. Perhaps you need to get a grip.

So are you done this time, or are you going to return again to tell me how you won't read my posts? I guess I'll find out.

[quote]
Also, your posts would have more impact (and people might actually read them) if you could manage to make them more succinct-- perhaps on the pithy side. Good luck with that.

[/quote]

Interesting - so you are going to teach me how to write more impactful posts? Really? Let me ask you - have your posts had a lot of impact? Exactly. I didn't think so.

I have also found in my previous attempts to write shorter posts that I then get accused of oversimplifying the issue. You can't win. Write long posts, and people don't like it. Write short posts, and people don't like that.

Hence, I will continue to write my posts the way that I please. I never asked for your advice. If you don't like them, fine, don't read them.

hoedown · August 10, 2007, 10:01am

I feel like we've got a moving target here.

Sakky, when you brought up the valid concern about people being admitted who had a slim chance of success, I assumed that we were talking about the publics which are less selective. Some of them are awfully darn close to being open access.

So this point, while being absolutely true, doesn't seem like a good retort to what's being said here:

[quote]
I don't know of a single top-tier flagship public school that actually offers open admissions. Not a single one. Only if you offer open admissions can you then say that you are truly serving "all the public". Plenty of state residents would like to attend their flagship state school and can't get in.

[/quote]

That's correct, but I didn't think that's what we were talking about. These top-tier schools aren't the ones who are admitting people with little regard for their ability to succeed in college. In my mind, their mission is to serve the public by offering a top-rate instate option for students who are well-qualified to get in. Their less-selective peers may have a different mission, which includes offering more access to more students.

Yes, the top publics have graduation rates that are lower than their comparable private peers, but I don't think it's a matter of them admitting people who can't handle college work.

sakky · August 10, 2007, 4:45pm

[quote]
Sakky, when you brought up the valid concern about people being admitted who had a slim chance of success, I assumed that we were talking about the publics which are less selective. Some of them are awfully darn close to being open access.

[/quote]

Let me trace out the logic of this thread for you:

Me: The top flagship public schools admit too many students who perform poorly. As a case in point regarding an example I know quite well, note all of the students in Berkeley engineering (and presumably UCLA engineering, Michigan engineering, Georgia Tech engineering, etc.) who flunk out.

My detractors: Those top flagship public universities have to admit less qualified students because of their mission to "serve all of the public".

Me: None of the top flagship public university offers open admissions, or anything close to it. The majority of already highly qualified applicants to Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Virginia, UNC, etc. won't get in. Hence, none of them could be said to truly "serve all of the public". The only schools that could be truly said to serve all of the public are the open-admissions community colleges. Hence, my detractors claim is demonstrably false and therefore null and void.

{At this point, my detractors chose to engage in a series of ad-hominem attacks and declarations about how they would no longer read my posts or even participate in this thread any longer, yet would bizarrely continue to reply to my posts anyway. But that's neither here nor there.}

[quote]
That's correct, but I didn't think that's what we were talking about. These top-tier schools aren't the ones who are admitting people with little regard for their ability to succeed in college. In my mind, their mission is to serve the public by offering a top-rate instate option for students who are well-qualified to get in

[/quote]

I would disagree, but with a caveat. The issue is not that they don't have the ability to succeed in some*college, or that they aren't well-qualified in a general cosmic sense. The issue is that they don't have the ability to succeed in that *particularly flagship in which they got admitted. Hence, they are not qualified for that particular program to which they got admitted. For example, I am quite sure that most of those students who flunked out of Berkeley engineering would have done just fine if they had just gone to an easier school. Heck, they might have done just fine even at Berkeley, but just not in the engineering program. So why did Berkeley engineering admit them then? Who benefits? Those students clearly don't benefit. Society doesn't benefit either. I doubt that the Berkeley engineering program benefits either. It sure seems to me that everybody loses. So why do it?

Not that I mean to harp on Berkeley engineering. I am quite sure that the same thing happens in Georgia Tech engineering or Michigan engineering or Illinois engineering - lots of students will not graduate. Nor do I mean to single out engineering. Plenty of other students in other public programs at the top flagships won't graduate. Why were these students admitted?

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Yes, the top publics have graduation rates that are lower than their comparable private peers, but I don't think it's a matter of them admitting people who can't handle college work.

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Again, see above. The issue is not that they can't handle college work at some college. The issue is that they can't handle * that particular* college's work. Berkeley engineering is extremely difficult, and I believe that the admissions standards for it should be raised to only admit those students who can actually handle that level of difficulty. Presently, many Berkeley engineering students are doing extremely poorly - having landed on academic probation if they haven't been expelled already. Why were they admitted to the program?

sakky · August 10, 2007, 6:52pm

[quote]
[Serving all the public means as many as they can reasonably handle. You can't have a single campus with 400,000 students in California but you figure a way to do it within a planned system which Cal and most states do. In Wisconsin if you don't make it into UW the first time you can go to a two year campus and if you do decently you are in UW as a junior. Same with UCB and the CCs in Cali. So you get even another shot

[/quote]

In fact, now that I think about it, the fact that public universities are run within systems actually makes my proposals easier to implement, not harder. Again, let's take those students who are admitted to Berkeley engineering and then flunk out. Many (probably most) of those students would have graduated just fine if they had gone to, say, UCDavis or UCSC, or, at least, a CalState. So why did Berkeley admit them, only to have them fail? Let them go to one of the other schools in the California system that is better matched to their abilities. It's a lot better to graduate from San Jose State than flunk out of Berkeley. Similarly, I'm sure that plenty of Michigan engineering students who flunk out would have done just fine had they gone to Eastern Michigan instead. I'm sure that plenty of UNC-Chapel Hill students who flunk out would have done fine if they had gone to, say, Western Carolina University instead.

The effect would therefore be twofold. To be sure, fewer students would be admitted to the top flagship universities; but as I pointed out, these flagships are already closed to most of the public anyway (because these flagships reject the majority of their applicants, and that doesn't even count those who don't even apply to the flagships because they already know they would be rejected). More importantly, we would now be rejecting those students who weren't going to do well anyway. These students would be directed to schools at which they can successfully obtain their degrees.

barrons · August 10, 2007, 7:19pm

You have not a shred of proof that the least qualified or most qualified students admitted to a school or program do either well or badly. You are just pulling stuff out of the air without a fact to support it. How do you know the entry stats of those who leave (flunkout)? Please show me the study.

Here's a start
"Overall high school GPA and SAT scores were included as predictor variables for this study. Prior studies have demonstrated modest prediction of college student achievement and attrition from high school academic performance and achievement test scores (i.e. SAT or ACT) (Daugherty & Lane, 1999; Galicki & McEwen, 1989). Wolfe & Johnson (1995) reported that high school GPA accounted for 19% of the variance in college GPA. Anastasi (1988) summarized 2000 studies relating SAT scores to college GPA and concluded that SAT scores predicted 18% of the variance in freshman GPA. The combination of these two measures has been found to predict 25% of the variance in college GPA (Wolfe & Johnson, 1995)."

barrons · August 10, 2007, 7:43pm

Here's a major study on the topic. They found flunkouts nearly impossible to predict based on admissions data etc.

<a href="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCR/is_1_38/ai_n6073199/pg_1%5B/url%5D">http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCR/is_1_38/ai_n6073199/pg_1</a>

hoedown · August 11, 2007, 10:55am

I think barrons' point is very important. The people who don't graduate from flagships include some number of students who failed, but they also include people who left in good standing academically (and successfully transferred) or withdrew for reasons that have nothing to do with preparation or ability.

Just as important was his point that not all of the students who do fail out from a flagship have clear markers in their record that should have told the Universities they're a weak bet. Given the selectivity of these places, I'm guessing that nearly all of them had pretty good indicators that they'd be successful students. But it's not an exact science, as those variance figures indicate, and at the end of the day you can't fully predict from an application which of the capable students you admit will flourish and which will flounder.

sakky · August 11, 2007, 6:11pm

[quote]
You have not a shred of proof that the least qualified or most qualified students admitted to a school or program do either well or badly. You are just pulling stuff out of the air without a fact to support it. How do you know the entry stats of those who leave (flunkout)? Please show me the study.

[/quote]

[quote]
Here's a major study on the topic. They found flunkouts nearly impossible to predict based on admissions data etc.

[/quote]

And that's exactly what I propose to find out. You may be correct that it is impossible to predict based on present admissions data. So then let's find out what the data is. For example, let's perform a data-mining search on every prior student at every flagship who failed to graduate, and look for correlating factors. Once we found out what those factors are, then the answer is to then simply admit fewer future students who exhibit those same characteristics.

This is the same method in which the scientific community determined that smoking is dangerous. We didn't need to know WHY smoking is dangerous, and on a pure biochemical level, we still don't know exactly why it is dangerous. But that's irrelevent. All the health insurance companies needed to know is that, for whatever reason, smoking is correlated with bad health, and hence smokers should be charged higher premiums. Similarly, for the purposes of this exercise, we don't really need to know exactly why certain students tend not to graduate. All we need to know is that certain ones tend not to graduate, and then adjust accordingly.

Berkeley, Michigan, and these other large flagship schools have decades of data on thousands of prior students, both successful and unsuccessful. Furthermore, both of them have top-notch computer science and statistics departments. It would not very difficult for them at all to build and run a statistical data-mining experiment on past students.

[quote]
I think barrons' point is very important. The people who don't graduate from flagships include some number of students who failed, but they also include people who left in good standing academically (and successfully transferred) or withdrew for reasons that have nothing to do with preparation or ability.

[/quote]

Then that just calls for a refinement of the statistical experiment. We can just split those students who flunked out from those who left for non-academic reasons, and then apply different prescriptive formulas to each. Those who are likely to flunk out probably should not be admitted in the first place. Those who don't graduate but are still in good academic standing perhaps should be investigated further to determine WHY they don't graduate, and then make according adjustments so that they will. {For example, the point has been raised that some people drop out because of lack of money. So then the answer to me seems to be to provide better financial support to these students. It doesn't necessarily need to be formal financial aid. It could be simply offering better non-work-study job opportunities to these students. I am continually amazed at how many staffers a school like Berkeley has, while at the same time, plenty of qualified Berkeley students can't find part-time jobs.}

But at the end of the day, it is still important to find out on the aggregate level who is not going to graduate, for whatever reason. This is not a game here. Think of it this way. Every single student who comes to your school and yet doesn't graduate is basically taking away a spot from some other student who wanted to come to that school and would have graduated, but didn't get in.

[quote]
Just as important was his point that not all of the students who do fail out from a flagship have clear markers in their record that should have told the Universities they're a weak bet. Given the selectivity of these places, I'm guessing that nearly all of them had pretty good indicators that they'd be successful students. But it's not an exact science, as those variance figures indicate, and at the end of the day you can't fully predict from an application which of the capable students you admit will flourish and which will flounder.

[/quote]

Considering the conspicuously low success rates at certain programs (i.e. Berkeley engineering), I strongly suspect that you'd be able to find something fairly easily.

Nevertheless, it is of course true that it isn't an exact science. But that's not the point. No social science or statistical study is. After all, you have to compare it to what is happening right now. You have to compare things to the statust quo. Right now, as I have pointed out, some students who are admitted won't graduate, and some students who didn't get admitted would have graduated. Hence, present-day admissions aren't an exact science either; yet I don't see any hue and cry about that.

What am I proposing is to make it better. Will it make the situation perfect? Of course not. But let's not the perfect be the enemy of the good. Let's be honest, right now, the present situation ain't that good. We may not be able to make it perfect, but we can at least make it better.

hoedown · August 12, 2007, 12:28am

I appreciate that you want to make it better, and I think many public colleges share an interest in improving their admissions decisions.

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I strongly suspect that you'd be able to find something fairly easily.

[/quote]

Unexplained variance is unexplained variance. Statistical modeling of human behavior is very far from precise, and it's not just a matter of trying harder or adding another year of data or calling in another statistician or including more variables.

It is very hard to quantify some personal characteristics, or to predict how certain characteristic will interact once a student is on campus. Nor can the campus control how the student gets along with a roommate or balances extracurricular commitments, or makes smart personal decisions about course scheduling.

It's not as if they are not interested. Yes, universities look for explanatory factors when students struggle, and they make adjustments in the admissions process accordingly. But there will always be some unknowns.

To do more weeding at the applicant stage brings up some other concerns that may worry public schools more than it does the ultra elite, highly selective schools. Instead of making the occasional Type I error, where you mistakenly assume an applicant will fit (when he doesn't), you'd make Type II errors, where you mistakenly assume an applicant won't succeed (when he'd do well). Then you deny him any chance at all. I don't know how palatable that is for publics. I suspect most would say it's better to give some larger number seemingly well-qualified students a decent chance, and tolerate some failures. That's subjective, of course--some might feel it's better to err the other way.

sakky · August 12, 2007, 4:13am

So now I see that the discussion has shifted from whether we * should* do something to whether we can do something. Good. At least I think we can agree that we should do something if we can. So at least I've moved the ball closer to the goal-line.

The question on the table now is whether we can do it.

[quote]
Unexplained variance is unexplained variance.

[/quote]

It is unexplained because we haven't done the proper investigation. At least, not yet.

[quote]
Statistical modeling of human behavior is very far from precise, and it's not just a matter of trying harder or adding another year of data or calling in another statistician or including more variables.

It is very hard to quantify some personal characteristics, or to predict how certain characteristic will interact once a student is on campus. Nor can the campus control how the student gets along with a roommate or balances extracurricular commitments, or makes smart personal decisions about course scheduling.

[/quote]

All very true. But I believe you have missed a key point: * schools are doing it already*. They're just doing it badly. Right now, schools are relying on grades, test scores, EC's, essay questions, teacher rec's, and other factors to determine who they should admit. These are all highly imprecise tools to determine whether somebody should be admitted. Nevertheless, *right now * schools are relying on these tools to make admissions decisions.

Presumably, there is some correlation between having strong high school grades and performance in college. Otherwise, why even bother looking at high school grades at all? Why doesn't Berkeley admit those who barely graduated from high school? Similarly, there is presumably some correlation between test scores and college performance; again, why doesn't Berkeley just admit everybody who had terrible SAT scores?

But, like you and others have said, and I don't disagree, those variables have limited predictive power. Hence, I propose finding variables that do have greater predictive power and then using them for future admissions decisions. What's wrong with that? Schools are already relying on variables to make admissions decisions. I simply propose using better and more complete variables, and using them in a way to minimize future dropouts.

Note, hoedown, my system doesn't have to be perfect to be useful. I am under no illusions that it will be perfect. No system is. That's not the point. The point is that it would be [better than the *current *system. Let's be perfectly honest. The current system isn't exactly the greatest in the world. The current system also relies on the same sort of incomplete statistical analysis that you decry.

The real issue to me is that schools make admissions decisions that are political in nature. For example, Berkeley has admitted quite a few athletes who would have been easy to predict beforehand didn't want to do the academic work and weren't going to graduate. I'm not simply talking about those who turned pro or otherwise left in good standing. I'm talking about those athletes who come to Cal and then flunked out, or even worse, become the focus of an NCAA scandal; for example, consider those Cal football players who were caught receiving phantom academic credits without which they would have been ineligible to play, hence landing the Cal football team in NCAA probation in 2002. Why were these guys admitted? Presumably these guys received phantom credits because they couldn't or didn't want to do the work to earn real academic credits, but why is Cal admitting people like that? What makes the situation so odious is that these players were taking admissions spots away from others who would have done the work and hence would have graduated (or at least would have left the school in good standing).

<a href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/06/27/SP79129.DTL%5B/url%5D">http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/06/27/SP79129.DTL</a>

But of course the travails of Cal athletics is just an example. I'm quite certain there are plenty of other political admissions decisions that are made all the time. Right now, admissions officers at any public university pay no penalty for admitting people they know (or at least strongly suspect) won't graduate.

[quote]
To do more weeding at the applicant stage brings up some other concerns that may worry public schools more than it does the ultra elite, highly selective schools. Instead of making the occasional Type I error, where you mistakenly assume an applicant will fit (when he doesn't), you'd make Type II errors, where you mistakenly assume an applicant won't succeed (when he'd do well). Then you deny him any chance at all. I don't know how palatable that is for publics. I suspect most would say it's better to give some larger number seemingly well-qualified students a decent chance, and tolerate some failures. That's subjective, of course--some might feel it's better to err the other way.

[/quote]

While it sounds nice in theory to give a large number of people a chance to succeed, that notion founders on the sharp rocks of reality. The truth is, flunking out of a school is a quite terrible fate to consign someone. Ruining your academic record by flunking out of a college greatly damages your future career prospects. You will encounter difficulty in getting a degree from any other reputable school because no reputable school wants to admit a transfer applicant who flunked out of his previous school. You will encounter difficulty in getting into grad school as, again, grad schools will screen by cumulative GPA, which includes all of the F's that you obtained when you flunked out. You may not even get the chance to argue that you recovered and did well in your 2nd school, as you may be screened out before your application is even read by a human being. Hence, whether we like it or not, flunking out of a college severely damages your future career prospects. It's not fair, it's not right, but it is the reality.

Furthermore, consider all of the time and money wasted in the current system. You have all of these students spending time and money at schools at which they won't graduate. Others have brought up the point that many of these students come from poor backgrounds and need to work, hence preventing them from graduating. But if anything, that makes my proposal more urgent, not less. These people don't have much money, and yet they're wasting it on tuition at a school from which they won't graduate. That's sad. These people are now worse off than before.

Hence, if this is the reality of the world we live in (and unfortunately it is), then we should strive to do a better job in matching students to the right schools so that the chances of flunking out. You don't let students run off to schools at which you know (or can reasonably predict) they are not going to make it.

[quote]
To do more weeding at the applicant stage brings up some other concerns that may worry public schools more than it does the ultra elite, highly selective schools...I don't know how palatable that is for publics.

[/quote]

Now, carefully consider what you just said there. Remember, in this thead, we're not talking about public schools in general. We're specifically talking about the top flagship public schools: Berkeley, UCLA, Virginia, UNC, etc. As I pointed out, these schools are already highly selective and arguably ultra-elite. The overwhelming majority of Californians can't get into Berkeley or UCLA. Most Virginians can't get into UVA. Hence, right now, most people aren't even being given the chance to succeed at Berkeley. Yet that is apparently palatable.

Since most Californians can't get into Berkeley anyway, then what's the harm in tweaking the process that less people will flunk out of Berkeley?

I would actually argue that my proposal actually *expands * social utility and opportunity. Those who would now be rejected from Berkeley aren't being denied the chance to go to college at all. Instead, they would be matched to some other school in the system (i.e. a lower UC or a CalState) in which they are likely to graduate from. The result would be more college graduates. You wouldn't have fewer Berkeley graduates either because like I said, the people who are being rejected wouldn't have graduated anyway.

Again, I reiterate. My proposals are not perfect, and I don't pretend that they are. They don't have to be. They just have to be better than the current situation - and the current situation ain't that good. Right now, a lot of students attend flagship public schools, and don't graduate. Right now, a lot of them flunk out, waste their money, and ruin their academic records. Let's not neglect the psychological aspect of the situation: right now, a lot of people have their self-confience shattered by attending academic programs that are too difficult for them (i.e. consider the harshness of Berkeley engineering). My proposed reforms are not perfect, but at least they'll solve some of the current problems.

hoedown · August 12, 2007, 9:06pm

[quote]
The overwhelming majority of Californians can't get into Berkeley or UCLA. Most Virginians can't get into UVA. Hence, right now, most people aren't even being given the chance to succeed at Berkeley. Yet that is apparently palatable.

[/quote]

It is palatable because many people accept that these are elite schools with limited enrollment, which can therefore only offer places to some specific number of well-qualified applicants. Not everyone likes this--I regularly hear arguments that a place like Michigan should be less selective. But the general public seems to accept the basic principle that if you excel in high school, you have a good shot at getting into the University and trying your best there. And based on past history and graduation rates, most of the people admitted and who make the decision to enroll are going to succeed.

I don't think they'd be happier with a system that layers on some kind of analysis that says "despite this student's strong high school performance, he has a characteristic which suggests they have a slightly higher chance of not succeeding--so we won't take the risk. Go elsewhere." I understand how you could argue that it's better to do this. But I think it would be a tough sell. From what I have seen in my state, people feel strongly that the best students deserve a spot at their flagship, they deserve a chance to try.

I feel certain they'd feel differently if their odds were iffier; they'd be more amenable to a more careful pre-weeding of students if the chance of failure was higher. But I've seen no data from my flagship (or others) that suggests admissions decisions are leading to many students flunking and suffering the consequences you describe.

I'd also feel more comfortable using this research to ofer additional support to enrolled students, rather than deny them admission outright.

barrons · August 12, 2007, 11:17pm

In this USA we believe in at least allowing people to take a chance on doing what they want without someone pigeon-holing them before even trying. People start businesses and fail about 80-90% of the time but we still encourage trying.

I actually found a study of freshman at Wisconsin and the students in the lowest 25% on the ACT (under a 26) did have worse grades than the upper groups. BUT about one-third half of them made at least a grade average in the top half of the total class. That's a nice success story for them and most of the rest were at least over a 2.0.

<a href="http://apa.wisc.edu/Fall_2005_Freshman_Outcomes.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://apa.wisc.edu/Fall_2005_Freshman_Outcomes.pdf</a>

sakky · August 13, 2007, 3:30am

[quote]
But the general public seems to accept the basic principle that if you excel in high school, you have a good shot at getting into the University and trying your best there

[/quote]

But that's not the principle in practice at these top flagships. Again, let's use Berkeley as an example. Plenty of Californians who do very well in high school nevertheless still don't get into Berkeley. Heck, I know one Californian who got into several Ivies and wait-listed at MIT, but didn't get into Berkeley. Granted, the fact that this person was applying to Berkeley EECS, the hardest program to get into, didn't help. It also didn't help that this person was a URM (as the Ivies and MIT use AA, but Berkeley does not by law). Nevertheless, the point is that whatever principle there may be regarding public schools and access, the top flagships are clearly not following it.

By law, as part of the California Master Plan, you have to be within the top 12.5% of all California high school seniors to even be eligible for ANY of the UC's, and that's not even talking about what you need to get into Berkeley, especially Berkeley engineering. The bottom line is that Berkeley is presently rejecting plenty of Californians who had done very well in high school.

[quote]
And based on past history and graduation rates, most of the people admitted and who make the decision to enroll are going to succeed.

[/quote]

Yeah, but that's not really getting to the heart of the matter. Let me put it to you this way. Most people will not become victims of crime. But that's not to say that crime is not a problem. Most people will not get into car accidents, but that's not to say that car accidents are not a problem. Even if a problem affects only a minority of people, that doesn't mean that it's not a problem worth solving. Otherwise, I might as well as say that since most people don't get mugged and robbed, I don't really care about the minority of people that do.

[quote]
I don't think they'd be happier with a system that layers on some kind of analysis that says "despite this student's strong high school performance, he has a characteristic which suggests they have a slightly higher chance of not succeeding--so we won't take the risk. Go elsewhere." I understand how you could argue that it's better to do this. But I think it would be a tough sell.

[/quote]

Well, again, that's a different issue you're raising. You're no longer arguing whether we should do it, or whether we could do it from a technical standpoint. Your argument is purely whether we could market the idea to the public.

Sure, I agree. This idea is probably not easily marketable to the public. Just like entitlements reform is not easily marketable to the public, even though I think everybody knows that one way or another, entitlement reform will have to happen sometime. Tax hikes and spending cuts are not easily marketable to the public, even though they are sometimes necessary for the long-term economic health of the country. Everybody wants lots of government services and no taxes.

But for the purposes of this thread, that's neither here nor there. First, we have to hash out whether this is a worthy idea (and I see that there is still resistance here). Once we've done that, then we can worry about trying to sell it to the public.

[quote]
I feel certain they'd feel differently if their odds were iffier; they'd be more amenable to a more careful pre-weeding of students if the chance of failure was higher. But I've seen no data from my flagship (or others) that suggests admissions decisions are leading to many students flunking and suffering the consequences you describe.

[/quote]

Then let's talk about engineering programs at the public schools. Let's look at some of the other links I posted before.

Pitt found that * just within the first year alone*, about 25% of its engineering students landed on academic probation.

<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=1698&page=7%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=1698&page=7</a>

"Ultimately, well-documented attrition rates suggest
that typically 50% to 70% of the freshman engineering
students eventually will not graduate with an engineering
degree,"

<a href="http://fie.engrng.pitt.edu/fie2006/papers/1743.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://fie.engrng.pitt.edu/fie2006/papers/1743.pdf</a>

"The University of Michigan has long been concerned with the high attrition rates of undergraduate students from mathematics, science and engineering disciplines"

<a href="http://fipse.aed.org/grantshow.cfm?grantNumber=P116B941599%5B/url%5D">http://fipse.aed.org/grantshow.cfm?grantNumber=P116B941599</a>

That's just a snippet of some of the rather extensive literature regarding attrition within engineering programs (most of which are at public schools). Surely that should whet your appetite.

Now of course you might say that that seems specific just to engineering. Hey, I am just using engineering as an example. Nevertheless, I think engineering is an excellent place to start. Public engineering programs should be more selective about who they admit so that they can suffer from less attrition. Berkeley engineering is the most selective of all of Berkeley's undergrad programs - and STILL plenty of engineering students will not graduate.

[quote]
In this USA we believe in at least allowing people to take a chance on doing what they want without someone pigeon-holing them before even trying.

[/quote]

Yet as I pointed out to hoedown, that's not what is happening at the top flagships today. The vast majority of applicants to Berkeley will get rejected. What about them? One could argue that those people weren't even giving a chance and hence were already pigeon-holed to attend a lesser UC or a CSU. You could say that those people weren't even given a chance to try. Yet Berkeley persists in rejecting the vast majority of its applicants. Simlarly, Virginia, UNC, Michigan, UCLA, and the other top publics reject most of their applicants. What about them?

[quote]
I actually found a study of freshman at Wisconsin and the students in the lowest 25% on the ACT (under a 26) did have worse grades than the upper groups. BUT about one-third half of them made at least a grade average in the top half of the total class. That's a nice success story for them and most of the rest were at least over a 2.0.

<a href="http://apa.wisc.edu/Fall_2005_Freshman_Outcomes.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://apa.wisc.edu/Fall_2005_Freshman_Outcomes.pdf</a>

[/quote]

Allright, then let's talk about Wisconsin. According to IPEDS, Wisconsin admitted 41.5% of its applicants in 2005 (the latest year where data was available). Hence, the majority of people who applied to Wisconsin didn't get in. Hence, they didn't even get the chance to do what they wanted. They were already pigeon-holed.

That illustrates my key point. You say that public schools shouldn't be going around denying people chances. Yet they're already doing it anyway. It's already happening. Since these flagships are already using tight admissions standards, what's so bad about tightening them still further to reject those people who wouldn't have graduated anyway. Like I said several times, these schools weren't exactly open-admissions to begin with.

[quote]
People start businesses and fail about 80-90% of the time but we still encourage trying.

[/quote]

Then let me extend your analogy. We may encourage entrepreneurship, but that doesn't mean that every entrepreneur is entitled to venture capital funding from a top VC firm. If you want to get funding from Kleiner Perkins or Sequoia Capital, or Benchmark Capital or one of these other elite VC firms, you are going to have to show why your business is worthy of that funding. The vast majority of startups don't get funded from these firms.

Similarly, while we may encourage education, that doesn't mean that Californians are entitled to go to Berkeley. Virginians are not entitled to go to UVa. And evidently Wisconsinians are not entitled to go to UW. There 's a huge difference between giving people the entitlement to go to some college, and granting them the entitlement to go to a top flagship. We do the former, and we should continue it. For example, I do not advocate closing down the open-admissions community colleges. But we don't do the latter. Nobody is entitled to get into Berkeley.

hoedown · August 13, 2007, 9:21am

[quote]
Well, again, that's a different issue you're raising. You're no longer arguing whether we should do it, or whether we could do it from a technical standpoint. Your argument is purely whether we could market the idea to the public.

[/quote]

I addressed this issue this way because it was a follow-up to my comment about palatability. And I do think it is relevant, because people believe they have a stake in their public institutions (even those who are so selective that only a small number of taxpayers have a chance of enrolling their kids there). They want universities to give well-qualified students a shot, to give them a chance to succeed. They accept that this is a chance, not a guarantee.

It's not that you're alone in caring about those students who do struggle, and who don't make it. It's just that what you seem to be suggesting--develop an admissions system which admits only those people who are 100% guaranteed to succeed, stay on target, not change majors, not decide to enroll somewhere else, not to skip assignments, etc.... seems like it would lead to an overly restrictive admissions policy that would mistakenly deny potentially successful students. If I believed one could develop a precise statistical model that could accurately predict what a student would do once enrolled, maybe I'd feel differently. But I don't believe it's possible. There are too many variations in student behavior and choices. In an effort to cut out everyone who seems like they might fail, you'd eliminate a lot of people who would do just fine. You wouldn't just be denying students who wouldn't graduate anyway.

What institutions do, and should do more of, is identify admitted students have may be at some greater risk for being among that small number who fail, and try to ensure they succeed through good advising.

Overall, your tone to me ("maybe this will whet your appetite".... "Let me outline the logic of this thread for you", etc) seems a little snarky. I don't think it's warranted.

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