Princeton Review reports that Denison undergrad graduation rates (probably for 2021, as current edition) are only 77% for 4 years and 83% for 6 years. This seems very low compared with peers Kenyon and Macalester. Does anyone know what is behind this?
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The CDS reports 4 & 6 year grad rates of the initial cohort of entering FYs. I think the bigger issue is that Denison has a low return rate of kids from Y1 to Y2 – at least for Covid year of Fall 2021. Historical data is hard to pin down, but it seems like for the graduating class of 2021, their return rate soph year was 85%. So you are losing 15% of the class to other schools (or dropping out); however, the grad rate then can’t be higher than 85% because you have already lost 15% of the class. But if you account for the missing/non-returning students, the grad rate is closer to 90.5% for those that come back Y2.
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Here you can see Denison’s 4-year graduation rate in the context of that of other colleges: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/highest-grad-rate. While Denison places below Macalester and Kenyon, it places above Wooster and Oberlin. With allowance for the year-to-year vagaries associated with this type of statistic, these relationships seem to comport reasonably well with expectation. The absolute figure for Denison may warrant closer analysis, however.
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Thanks. Are you aware of anywhere to obtain retention rates from first-year to sophomore year?
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Does not seem totally out of whack as I originally thought.
This site lists LACs by retention rate: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges/freshmen-least-most-likely-return.
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Yes – the Common Data Set has that info, but it’s not for the same entry cohort as the bulk of the rest of the info – for the 2021-22 CDS, the retention rate is for students enrolled in Fall '21 while the grad data is for those entering in 2015. However, this site has a ton of interesting data: Denison University | Data USA
But you have to poke around to find what you are looking for & use multiple tabs to compare schools (& I didn’t have the time to do that yet).
Yes - I think the bigger question is why are so many kids leaving the school. This seems to be an issue at a few LACs my son is interested in – such as Dickinson (82%) & Denison (87%) but the most recent CDS retention data is for HS c/o of 2020 – so a lot of the attrition could be due to Covid protocols (online/distance learning) & students not wanting to pay for that.
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My son, HS class of 2019, is a senior at Denison. Just anecdotally, there was a lot of disruption because of COVID for students coming in as first-years in 2020. My son’s class had one “normal” semester that allowed them to get oriented before everyone was sent home early in the second semester. For that group, being back on campus for their sophomore year, even with remote classes, was an improvement, but it must have been rough on the incoming first-years. The same thing was true for other schools as well, of course, and we thought Denison handled the pandemic extremely well, but I did hear from my son about kids taking time off, kids transferring to schools closer to home, etc. Nothing Denison-specific. It’s been a terrific school for our son, so I wouldn’t let these concerns scare you off, particularly as it seems from the other data people have mentioned that Denison isn’t really out of line with its peers in this regard. If you still have questions, however, the Admissions Department may be able to help. It’s interesting to see that Denison is now providing a CDS. In past years, they did not.
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Thank you. This is a very helpful perspective that you’ve shared. I appreciate it.
Another factor to consider - I don’t know about Denison, but I know that at Oberlin a significant chunk of entering students pursue the 5 year dual degree program at the Conservatory and College - thus the 4 year graduation rate is always lower, but this is not a marker of “failure to graduate,” but rather the intent of the degree program. (something like 7.5% of entering freshmen). This perpetually knocks Oberlin down on mass rankings that use stats without context.
In other words - numbers can be important, and might indicate something concerning, but context really matters!!
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Good point. I can see athletes trying to push the 5-year option but Denison does not have many of those programs from what I can tell.
There is only a 2% gap between 4 & 6 yr grad rates at Denison so I don’t think the conservatory program or athletes make that much of an impact. And as for those that do a 3-2 program in Engineering, they get a BS first at 3 yrs, then get an addition BS at the 2nd school in Engineering.
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