My alma mater (public) has these statistics published back into the 1980s. Going through them, I found a few things I found interesting.
(1) There was a huge increase in the number of admitted students when lottery scholarships became available.
(2) After two years - when the lottery scholarships weren’t always renewed due to student performance - there was a huge downfall in retention.
(3) After the inability to pay / inability to perform students were removed from the equation (the kids who lost their scholarships), the rates from the 3rd year through the 6th year were fairly consistent. So, once the student made it through the third year, the student would most likely graduate within 6 years, and usually within 5 years.
This tells me that the school is scholarshipping a large number of students “on the cusp” who end up not performing. But for the kids who are fully academically qualified, they tend to graduate within 5-6 years. This also tells me that these students are more than likely working part time and keeping their class loads down, studying abroad, taking a gap year/semester, whatever, but they do graduate.
Sometimes instead of looking at the entire picture, you need to look at only one part of it.
“Oh, puhleeze. The number of kids leaving early (ala McCaffrey) are so small as to not even be a rounding error. (Stanford has a 98% grad rate for athletes per ncaa.) Over half of Stanford’s athletic teams have a 100% grad rate. Heck, the number of D1 recruits that stay >5 years is not all that large, as a % to total student group, as to not be material.”
Seriously – puhleeze. Stanford retains 98% of its freshman and graduates 95% of incoming students in six years. Yale graduates 97% – big contrast.
FYI, the biggest portion of the USNWR rankings formula is retention and graduation. So the top retainer/graduator schools are the same old usual suspects that are always ranked at the top of every list. HYPS…
It is easier to get out of HYPS than it is to get in. The kids who are smart, motivated and resourced enough to fight their way into HYPS are going to stay and graduate in overwhelming numbers. No matter what HYPS does/does not do with those kids while they are there.
There is reason to suspect that schools with science/engineering emphasis tend to have lower 4-year graduation rates. For example, it’s not easy to complete an ABET-accredited engineering program in 4 years, even if you go straight through without ever failing any classes or changing majors.
The current USN&WR rankings rate schools by “2015 Graduation Rate Overperformance/Underperformance”. Here are the biggest underperformers among the Top 50 National Universities:
-7 Caltech
-5 MIT
-6 Case Western
-4 RPI
-4 WUSTL
-4 Emory
-3 Carnegie Mellon
-3 Brandeis
-3 Georgia Tech
-3 Lehigh
-3 Northwestern
No doubt there are multiple factors involved, including random ones. But I still think there are a disproportionate number of engineering-oriented schools on that list.
MIT and CalTech are seriously difficult for everyone. I know someone who recently received tenure at Harvard and he still says his undergrad at MIT was the most difficult part of his education.
In contrast, my nephew who graduated from Yale a few years ago said: “It’s hard to get an ‘A’ at Yale, but it’s harder to get a ‘C’”).
The 2015 Graduation Rate Underperformers (listed in Post #22 above) are from the latest (2017) USN&WR. I also found last year’s edition (2016), which has the 2014 Graduation Rate Underperformers:
-6 Lehigh
-5 MIT
-5 NYU
-4 Caltech
-4 Rochester
-4 Georgia Tech
-4 Case Western
-4 RPI
-3 UCSD
The schools listed as Graduation Rate Underperfomers in both 2014 and 2015 are MIT, Caltech, Georgia Tech, Case Western, RPI, and Lehigh. Again, I’m sure that multiple factors are involved, but I don’t think this stat favors engineering-oriented schools.
That’s correct – they are “underperforming” relative to how USN&WR thinks that they “should” perform, based on their proprietary modeling (which apparently includes factors like selectivity, spending, and Pell grants).
For example, the current USN&WR sees that MIT has a 92% graduation rate – but their model predicts that MIT “should” have a 97% rate. So MIT gets dinged with a -5.
Conversely, Northeastern has only a 84% graduation rate – but the model predicts that Northeastern “should” have only an 80% rate. So Northeastern gets rewarded with a +4.
This means that Northeastern does better than MIT in the “Graduation rate performance” category, which represents 7.5% of the total USN&WR score.
On the other hand, MIT’s graduation rate is still higher than Northeastern’s in absolute terms (92% vs. 84%). So MIT does better in the separate “Graduation and retention” category, which is more important since it represents 22.5% of the total score.
I’m not endorsing any of USN&WR’s scoring methodology here; it’s obviously quite arbitrary, and their graduation rate performance model doesn’t seem to be particularly transparent. I’m just looking at how it is claimed to work.
I actually didn’t pay attention to that metric at all. The reasons most kids can’t finish weren’t applicable so whether my kids finished in 4-5 years was going to be dependent on them and their drive to complete their degree.
@momofthreeboys, the only problem I can see with your statement is that there could be times when required courses aren’t offered enough and the quality of advising isn’t high enough to make up for it. If the reason is admitting too many students with low chances of graduating or students running out of money I agree with you. This could actually be something we end up thinking about with S18.
Yes perhaps, although I’m not sure how many colleges have “impacted” majors and suspect that kids that are admitted directly into majors as freshman and keep the required GPA are not impacted. It would impact kids perhaps that enter in one major or college and change their mind and want to transfer into an impacted major.
Just an observation- most of the time, the kids I know who have dropped out, transferred out, needed a 6th year, were unable to get the classes they needed for a timely graduation, etc. blame “bad advising”. When you ask follow up questions- it’s not “bad advising”- it’s a kid NOT taking advantage of the advising, or not listening to the advice, or assuming that something their roommate said was true without actually verifying it, or assuming that because the BFF goes to an entirely different college and the system for AP credits is X therefore their own college (in a different state) must treat AP credits the same, etc.
Most colleges have an infrastructure in place so that kids come in, graduate in four years with a degree and a major. Some colleges are more aggressive about policing that infrastructure- for sure. But kids who opt NOT to get an advisor to weigh in on their course of study, choose to skip a semester in the course sequence because they don’t want to have to wake up for an 8 am lab and then next semester skipping that course yet again because they don’t want a Friday class… believe me, we’ve all heard it before. Then the parents are shocked (and tapped out) when after 8 semesters there is no graduation, no degree in sight, and then the blame is “bad advising”.
Your kid needs to understand- college isn’t HS. The principal doesn’t call mommy and daddy if little Susie didn’t take US History sophomore year and it’s a state requirement for graduation. The principal doesn’t call mommy and daddy if Joey discovers that after four years he’s got too many gen ed credits and not enough credits in his major. The principal doesn’t call mommy and daddy if Joanne can’t take her senior seminar/thesis class which is a requirement in her major because she still hasn’t taken “methods in social science research” which is the pre-req for her thesis class.
I think ya’ll are putting way too much thought into this.
The difference between high freshman retention versus low freshman retention is that if your daughter makes 10 friends at a high retention school, chances are that all 10 friends will be there next year. If she meets 10 friends at a low retention school, less than 10 will likely be there the next year.
Anything else is overthinking a statistic. It doesn’t say anything about your daughter and whether she will return after freshman year.
Statistics only work on large populations. They don’t work on individual cases.
oh please… no one from an ivy gets drafted anywhere (let’s be real- except for hockey) Stanford gives out 500 athletic scholarships per year… the past olympics Stanford had more American Olympians… more medals… more gold medals than any other university… many of whom took a year off to train including Ledecky, Simone Manuel. they are going to materially lower 4 year graduation rates.
in addition to McCafferty… Solomon Thomas is leaving early for the draft too… which is what happens at FBS schools.
@sbballer So 7% of Stanford’s undergraduates are athletes, and lets say of those 7% that 5% of them actually train for the olympics or leaves early for a draft (that would be 25 so it may even be a high estimate), that would mean to have a .35% effect on the retention rate. And thats for Stanford, most athletic institutes are much larger in total undergraduate population than Stanford. More people probably leave Stanford early for entrepreneurial reasons than sports anyways.
I would think graduation rate would be more important than retention. Lower (or longer - be careful to compare the number of years. I noticed some schools published 6 year rates, others 4 year.) graduation rates can suggest that important classes can be hard to get or it can be difficult to move focus within the university career.
UCLA or UMich, for instance, has a 6 year grad rate of about 90%, while there are 10 private colleges that claim a 4 year grad rate of over 90%. Certainly one knock on the UCs is availability of popular/required classes, which might be suggested in that stat, as the quality of the UCLA/UMich student should be relatively on par with Georgetown/BC/ND - all of whom have claim 89% or higher 4 year rate.
Looking at the USNews 4 year rates (if accurate) UVa is the top public, at 87%, Wm&Mary and UNC are the next I notice at 82%, Elon 79% (I’m skimming so I’m sure I missed a few)
Some surprises, (to me) Stanford 75%, Occidental 82%. Julliard 88% (would have expected more kids to go “pro” without graduating) UMich and UCLA hit 74/75 for 4 year rates. Not terrible, but lower than some comparable privates probably due to availability of classes in some cases (given their 6 year rates. Lower in state tuition may contribute as well. Easier to take 5 years at 25k than 5 years at 50k.) UCSB 70% for 4 year. Penn st./Pitt 64%.
I would certainly use the 4 and 6 year rates to red flag possible difficulty getting classes, changing majors (a low 4 year and high 6 year might suggest that possibility, I think)
You really shouldn’t compare 4/6 year grad rates at public universities vs. private. Public universities have a higher proportion of financially needy students, and they also tend to be relatively easy to shift from full time to part time, or to leave for a semester and return; they have more students who are commuters; and public universities also tend to have a wider age distribution of incoming students, so a higher number of older students who are self-supporting, such as military veterans or married students, who may have a variety of life circumstances that make continued full time attendance difficult.
So you can’t assume that the reason for delayed graduation is related to issues like course availability. That certainly may be a problem for some students, but it is not the only factor, so you can’t really assume it to be a primary factor.
My son attended college for 4 years, at two different schools, but he graduated 7 years after entry. Three of those years were out of school, working full time. The first school was private; the second was public, with DS paying his own way. So he brings down the stats from college #1 because he did not stay there; and he doesn’t get counted in the stats of college #2 because he entered as a transfer.
Indeed. Moreover, the publics (iike UC) are extremely generous with AP credits (unlike top privates). It is rather easy for kids to graduate in 3 years from UC by using AP credits.
Also, the “cannot get the needed classes to graduate” excuse seems to be overused, probably by students who do not want to take the 8am section of the class, do not follow their major’s course plan or otherwise apply organizational skills to their scheduling, or otherwise need an excuse to tell their parents why they need a 9th, 10th, … semester.
When I went to college, the 4 year graduation rate was probably under 40%. But it was less selective back then, and it was also inexpensive enough that a 9th, 10th, … semester was not such a big deal cost wise (so many students voluntarily took light full time course loads of 12-13 credit units instead of the 15 credit units needed to finish in 8 semesters).
@calmom I would not “assume” it (and did not suggest one should) but it would be (and was) a red flag for us with certain schools. “Public Ivies” in general have a very similar student make-up to comparable privates. USC/UCLA/UCSD are a very similar student body for instance. So the UC grad rates, or Wm+Mary and UVa doing better with grad rates than UMich or UCs should simply suggest that you might want to dig deeper into reasons before your kid commits.
There is very little anyone should “assume” before committing to a 50 - 250k investment. But there are statistics that can “suggest” lines of exploration.
As @bluebayou notes, there are reasons that grad rates at UC should/could be higher. So any kind of unusual stat between similar schools should be investigated, I would think.