US News really needs to eliminate "freshmen retention" as a factor

Parent Cafe
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<p>As most know here in CC, U S News rates undergraduate programs based on a number of factors, one of which is "freshmen retention." I always thought that using that factor was a mistake, and this was recently confirmed by my meeting with two kids from different schools.</p>

<p>Both kids had under a 2.0 during their freshmen year. One had a 1.1 overalll GPA and was merely put on probation by her school. The other kid had a 1.3 overall GPA and wasn't even put on probation by their schools,which was a different school.</p>

<p>I believe that some schools ( and perhaps many schools) are trying to game the system by refusing to flunk out kids that should flunk out. This certainly increases freshmen retention.</p>

<p>Accordingly, I think US News should eliminate this factor from their rankings. What do you think?</p>

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<p>I honestly never thought of freshman retention as a measure of how many kids do or do not flunk out their freshman year (but maybe I should have, I don’t know). I always considered freshman retention as an overall measure of whether or not a student body is happy with a school.To me freshman retention represents students’ willingness to return for their sophomore year instead of transferring to a ‘better’ school. But I admit I never looked to see how US News defines the term.</p>

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<p>I agree with Greta. I think retention is one important factor like the others. Those who don’t return will include those who flunk out certainly, but also those who choose not to return for personal/financial/fit/change of major reasons. Just like any statistic, it should not be used all by itself and taken out of context.</p>

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<p>Students who transfer out of a college because it refuses to flunk doofuses are still counted by the U.S. News statistic.</p>

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<p>Frosh retention:<br>
~measure of frosh satisfaction
~ability of college to assist students financially
~ability of college to assist students academically, socially</p>

<p>I would not want my kid attending a school where only 60% come back for year 2 would you?</p>

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<p>I agree that retention rate is one of several important metrics. In addition, the graduation rate would give clues as to how well the schools kept the students on track to successfully complete their degrees at that school. Graduation and retention rank are important to me.</p>

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<p>Is there any way to tell the number of students leaving because of grades? Maybe we need grade statistics, too!</p>

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<p>taxguy, just curious, was the kiddo with a 1.3 at public U? I am surprised that the kiddo with the 1.3 was not offered the opportunity to pull that gpa up to show academic progress by the end of the summer session. Are both of these students going to go to a CC and then try a 4 year school in a year or two?</p>

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<p>I think freshman retention is very important. One of the most important things to look at. Between parents and schools there is a massive investment made in each and every student, particularly at the more prestigious schools. Not returning for your sophomore year represents a waste of time and money. I want a school that will work with my student if times get tough that freshman year and not just bail on them. I have to respectfully disagree with you on this.</p>

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<p>Northeastmom, both kids were attending private schools.</p>

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<p>I agree that Freshmen Retention is often an important indicator or student satisfaction at ABC College. However, I think its weight is much, much too high in the USNWR rankings eg, Freshmen Retention is 4x the weight of Student/Faculty ratio which really has a much larger impact on the undergraduate’s classroom experience. Furthermore, as the data below clearly demonstrates for the USNWR Top 30 national universities, slight differences in FR result in large differences in ranking on this metric that distort the rankings and overstate small differences among colleges. </p>

<p>Rank on Freshmen Retention , Freshmen Retention , National University</p>

<p>1 , 98% , Princeton
1 , 98% , Yale
1 , 98% , MIT
1 , 98% , Stanford
1 , 98% , Caltech
1 , 98% , U Penn
1 , 98% , Columbia
1 , 98% , Dartmouth
1 , 98% , Brown
1 , 98% , Notre Dame
11 , 97% , Harvard
11 , 97% , U Chicago
11 , 97% , Northwestern
11 , 97% , Wash U
11 , 97% , Rice
11 , 97% , UC Berkeley
11 , 97% , U Virginia
11 , 97% , Georgetown
11 , 97% , UCLA
20 , 96% , Duke
20 , 96% , Cornell
20 , 96% , Johns Hopkins
20 , 96% , Vanderbilt
20 , 96% , U Michigan
20 , 96% , USC
20 , 96% , Tufts
20 , 96% , U North Carolina
28 , 94% , Emory
28 , 94% , Carnegie Mellon
28 , 94% , Wake Forest</p>

<p>Finally, I think that there is also a name-brand benefit of Freshmen Retention that works to the benefit of the historical powers. Just as the brand of some colleges likely leads to many extra applications, with a concurrent downward move in Acceptance Rates, students often put up with an inferior experience at a “high-brand” school. There have been many qualitative comparisons done for student experiences at these colleges vs their less heralded peers and student experiences/unhappiness differences are revealed while differences in FR often don’t reflect this.</p>

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<p>Among the LACs, it also measures how well the app process and college info work to get the vaunted “good fit.” Ability to handle the workload is an important part of that, along with the aforementioned support services, etc. Several decades ago, my college enrolled 10% black students (the only minority that was measured back then:) Only about 25% of them graduated with our class. It was a real eye opener that the on-campus support services were woefully lacking and, thankfully, that has improved greatly. (It also gave us fodder for a wonderful 25th reunion panel:)</p>

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<p>I wonder how closely the retention rate correlates with student SAT/ACT? I always thought poor retention reflected how well prepared students were for academics.</p>

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<p>I think this is one of those questions that the general population would see differently than the small percentage here on CC. Academic struggle is a HUGE reason why kids drop out of schools or transfer out. For many, many kids who attend their local schools, general “fit” was never really a consideration (maybe it should have been!) I agree this is an important statistic and one that I look at when looking at college profiles – but I don’t think it primarily indicates whether kids are happy or served well. Sometimes, it indicates that schools serve more academically at-risk populations, and they may be doing a very fine job of that – there are just inherent retention problems with that demographic.<br>
By the way, I think the “doofus” comment was uncalled for.</p>

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<p>Cross-posted with treetop, who said it much more concisely.</p>

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<p>I don’t follow the rating systems closely enough to know how this info is used in the formula - but it is one of the three basic facts I have looked at when scanning colleges with my DS and DD. (The other two being SAT range and graduation percentage). I don’t worry about 99% vs 98% - but I do worry about numbers in the 60s… I think of it almost like a grade - As and Bs are fine, Cs, Ds or Fs is a red flag.</p>

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<p>Concur, but the historical powers also tend to have a lot of full-pay students and awesome finaid (full rides for families below a threshold) so financiing is not much of an issue. In contrast, with the exception of UVa and those that provide merit money, the publics tend have a lot of working students (relative to the historical powers) and Pell Grantees. Unlike the full rides for Pells at historical powers, the UCs require at least $9k self-help, even for a zero efc.</p>

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<p>Which comparisons were you speaking of?</p>

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<p>“US News really needs to eliminate “freshmen retention” as a factor”</p>

<p>I don’t think eliminating this info is helpful. My interpretation of a lowish retention rate is that the school admits more kids who are marginal. The schools that have high admittance requirements have high retention because of student quality.</p>

<p>I don’t know how you separate schools that grade inflate and keep everyone vrs. schools that maintain higher standards and let more kids go.</p>

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<p>Qualitative comparisons include things like the Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE) survey to student response data like that found on Sparknotes to independently sourced data from providers such as College Pr-o-w-ler.</p>