<p>What is this COHE survey?</p>
<p>My interpretation of a lowish retention rate is that the school admits more kids who are marginal.</p>
<p>possible.
However- some students may show great promise and with support from the school and a lot of hard work can excel.
My daughter for instance graduated from a college where the average admitted GPA was 3.9( unweighted) & hers was 3.3- her overall SAT scores were also lower than average.
Combined with the fact that this was a student body with a high achievement track record ( students who are used to being in the top 5% of their class, may not relish the thought of being in the bottom 50%) who pride themselves on how hard they work, I don’t doubt that quite a few students came to the conclusion that if they are going to sweat blood, they might as well get a decal to go with it and transfer out. That could explain why they have lower retention than expected.
;)</p>
<p>Oh, I see you changed what you called it–yes, I’m familiar with the COFHE survey. Or at least, I thought I was.</p>
<p>I don’t understand its role in providing the comparative data you are speaking of. COFHE surveys are administered to students at its member schools, not on a nationwide basis. Most COFHE members fall within that “high brand” grouping, so what does COFHE tell us about the (comparative) student experience at “less-heralded” institutions? Has there been a change in COFHE administration?</p>
<p>hoedown,
I would consider many of the COFHE participants to be “less heralded” than their Ivy peers. In all, there are 31 colleges that participate. Do you consider the following members of COFHE to have the same (or even close) brand power as the Ivy colleges? I don’t. </p>
<p>Barnard
Bryn Mawr
Carleton
Georgetown
Johns Hopkins
Mt Holyoke
Oberlin
Pomona
Rice
Smith
Swarthmore
Trinity
U Chicago
U Rochester
Wash U
Wellesley
Wesleyan</p>
<p>I think the freshman retention rate is important. Yes…there are different criteria for each college BUT the important thing is what that retention rate is for the college(s) your kid is considering REGARDLESS of the reasons. I agree…a retention rate that is very low is a good thing to know about. It indicates that students don’t stay at that school…and the reasons why don’t really matter…it’s just a statement about freshman retention (which I happen to think is important..they should be trying to retain those freshman).</p>
<p>No, you’re right, they are not Ivy-brand. I didn’t know that these were the schools you meant, because well-respected, and not schools I would expect to be ill-served by a retention measure–except maybe the women’s colleges. (I think there can be fit issues there, because some women can’t accurately predict how they’ll like that environment.)</p>
<p>Can you point us to the COFHE data that concludes that freshmen at Ivies are unhappy relative to their COFHE peers? That sounds precisely like the kind of thing institutions wouldn’t make public, but kudos to those that were willing to be open about it.</p>
<p>hoedown,
I don’t know if COFHE provides a full public report. Do you? There have been press reports over the years about their results as they relate to individual schools, including the link below for Harvard. </p>
<p>[Student</a> life at Harvard lags peer schools, poll finds - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/03/29/student_life_at_harvard_lags_peer_schools_poll_finds/]Student”>http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/03/29/student_life_at_harvard_lags_peer_schools_poll_finds/)</p>
<p>Despite the level of dissatisfaction, however, Harvard has retained its freshmen at the rate of 97%, 98%, and 97% for the last three years. I think that such an example demonstrates the power of the brand and how this helps keep students enrolled, even if they aren’t fully happy. My guess is that if a school like Trinity (also part of COFHE) had students expressing sentiments similar to what Harvard students have made, then you’d see a lower freshmen retention rate at Trinity.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This scenario could playout a number of different ways to determine whether a student is placed on probation or academically dismissed as policies vary from school to school. From what I have seen, public schools drive a harder line.</p>
<p>Student # 1 - If a student had a 2.0 gpa during the fall term and failed during the spring term, even if s/he had a 1.1 gpa, the school would most likely place on probation until the student brings the gpa up to 2.0 gpa.</p>
<p>student #2 starts of first term with anywhere from a 0 - 1.99 gpa and is placed on probation going into the spring term. Student continues on a slide, does not make the gpa requirement and is placed on academic dismissal.</p>
<p>Student #3, finishes fall term with below 2.0, placed on probation, spring term, student pases all courses above 2.0 although overall gpa is not above 2.0, but will still be allowed to stay because they are making successful progress.</p>
<p>The scenarios do not even take into consideration students who file appeals or petitions for reinstatements.
When my D attended Dartmouth, a student could be placed on probation at any time by receiving either 3 D’s or a combination of a D & E in a single term regardless of the overall GPA. Theoretically, if a student received 3 A’s first term and 3 D’s second term, even though they have an overall gpa of 2.5, they will be placed on academic probation.</p>
<p>Should a student fail 2 courses in a single term regardless of the overall GPA, they will be suspended.</p>
<p>[Academic</a> Action](<a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/~uja/action/index.html]Academic”>http://www.dartmouth.edu/~uja/action/index.html)</p>
<p>No, my experience with COFHE is that it’s used for internal purposes.</p>
<p>I think one leaked finding that 7% of seniors at one Ivy are dissatisfied–compared to an average of 5% at other prestige privates–is of limited interpretive value.</p>
<p>I think your theory actually has some merit–that an unhappy freshman at a highly prestigious school may stick it out because he or she still wants that name school. I’ll bet that does happen, and freshman retention is boosted by that.</p>
<p>But I question how much good data we have that would tell us how widespread this phenomenon is. I wonder whether you should cite COFHE data as one of our available sources, because I don’t think we know what the full COFHE data would really show avout the Ivies. Furthermore, it’s a senior survey, not a freshman survey.</p>
<p>I think freshman retention is an important factor. Much more so than % of alumni who donate… now there’s a factor that should be eliminated.</p>
<p>I don’t want my kid going to a school where a large percentage of the kids either can’t cut it academically, don’t want to do the work, or are so unhappy that they transfer out after freshman year. I want a college that selects kids that are good fits for the school. I think freshman retention rate is as good a way as any of measuring this.</p>
<p>Hawkette, in answer to your question, I would suggest this experiment. Randomly choose any Ivy League college and ask yourself what exactly is it heralded for? For most of them, it is for being in the Ivy League. </p>
<p>Hawkette wrote:</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Barnard
Bryn Mawr
Carleton
Georgetown
Johns Hopkins
Mt Holyoke
Oberlin
Pomona
Rice
Smith
Swarthmore
Trinity
U Chicago
U Rochester
Wash U
Wellesley
Wesleyan<</p>
<p>I agree with the observation (I think made by hawkette) that tiny differences at the top of freshman retention rate rankings aren’t meaningful. I do think freshman retention rate becomes an issue when it gets down into the low 90s or below. If nearly 1 in 10 freshmen aren’t returning it suggests something is amiss academically, financially, or socially—or some combination of these. So the interesting question is not which schools have the highest scores, but which have outlying low scores.</p>
<p>Lowest reported freshman retention rates among US News top 50 research universities:</p>
<ol>
<li>Yeshiva 88.0</li>
<li>UC Davis 90.2</li>
<li>UC Santa Barbara 90.5</li>
<li>Case Western 91.0</li>
<li>Georgia Tech 92.0</li>
<li>NYU 92.2</li>
<li>UIUC 92.2</li>
<li>RPI 92.2</li>
<li>U Washington 92.5</li>
<li>U Texas-Austin 92.8</li>
<li>U Wisconsin-Madison 93.2</li>
<li>UC Irvine 93.5</li>
<li>CMU 93.8</li>
<li>Wake Forest 94.0</li>
<li>Lehigh 94.0</li>
<li>Emory 94.2</li>
<li>UC San Diego 94.2</li>
<li>U Rochester 94.2</li>
<li>U Florida 94.2</li>
<li>Brandeis 94.5</li>
</ol>
<p>A high proportion of those are publics, and a number are prominent engineering schools (both public and private). But the explanation can’t be that “publics do poorly on this measure” because some other top publics do very well, including UCLA (97.0), UC Berkeley (96.8), UVA (96.8), UNC-Chapel Hill (96.2), Michigan (96.0)-- all roughly roughly in the same range as Cornell (96.0), Duke (96.5), WUSTL (97.0), Northwestern (97.0), and Harvard (97.2). Also note that half of this low-scoring cohort are privates: Yeshiva, Case Western, NYU, RPI, CMU, Wake Forest, Lehigh, Emory, U Rochester, Brandeis.</p>
<p>Same for engineering schools—Georgia Tech, RPI, and CMU shouldn’t be let off the hook on grounds that “engineering is hard” when such engineering-heavy schools as MIT (98.0), Stanford (98.0), Caltech (97.8) and Cornell (96.0) are doing much better.</p>
<p>Lowest reported freshman retention rates among US News top 50 LACs:</p>
<ol>
<li>Bard 88.2</li>
<li>Sewanee-University of the South 88.8</li>
<li>Smith 90.2</li>
<li>Scripps 90.2</li>
<li>DePauw 90.2</li>
<li>U Richmond 91.0</li>
<li>Dickinson 91.0</li>
<li>Connecticut College 91.2</li>
<li>Centre College 91.2</li>
<li>Gettysburg 91.2</li>
<li>Trinity 91.5</li>
<li>Occidental 91.5</li>
<li>Franklin & Marshall 91.5</li>
<li>Furman 92.2</li>
<li>Union 92.2</li>
<li>Hamilton 92.5</li>
<li>Grinnell 92.8</li>
<li>Mount Holyoke 93.0</li>
<li>Skidmore 93.0</li>
<li>St. Olaf 93.0</li>
<li>Oberlin 93.2</li>
<li>Colby 93.2</li>
<li>Macalester 93.2</li>
<li>Colorado College 93.2</li>
<li>Colgate 93.5</li>
<li>Kenyon 93.5</li>
</ol>
<p>I’m not sure I see much of a pattern here, but there are several prominent women’s colleges (Smith, Scripps, Mount Holyoke), Midwestern LACs (DePauw, Grinnell, St. Olaf, Oberlin, Macalester, Kenyon–a high percentage of the best Midwestern LACs), and LACs in remote or isolated locations (Bard, Mount Holyoke, Hamilton, Grinnell, Colby, Colgate, Kenyon). But then, other schools in all these categories do better.</p>
<p>But then maybe leaving a school after a year or two isn’t always the worst thing. Barack Obama started college at Occidental (91.5% retention rate), left Occidental after two years and earned his BA at Columbia; after a stint as a community organizer in Chicago he was admitted to Harvard Law School, elected President of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, and went on to turn the political world upside down. He wouldn’t have figured in Occidental’s freshman retention rate because he left after his second year, but if some of these schools are providing some of their students a springboard to even bigger and better things, maybe we shouldn’t judge them too harshly. I’d still be cautious and ask a lot of questions, though, anytime freshman retention rates dip into the low 90s or lower.</p>
<p>Jw,
If your point is that people are drawn to the Ivies, sometimes at the expense of a better fit elsewhere, then I completely agree. And I think that is too bad for the prospective student. I do believe in and think I understand college prestige, but I think in the case of the Ivy colleges, it is grossly overdone. They are good colleges, but it’s not like there aren’t plenty of other places equally good and, when factored for personal fit, there are dozens that are better. </p>
<p>The good news on the American college scene is that there are a lot of terrific colleges and they’re found all over the USA. The bad news is that some prestige hounds and the conventional wisdom of the MSM persist in pushing the myth that the Ivies are automatically superior. They’re not. </p>
<p>As for bclintonk’s contention that low Freshmen Retention rates have indicative value, I would agree. However, I’m not sure I agree with your examples, particularly those at the 94% level. Given the small size of some of these schools, these are very small numbers of students (eg, Wake Forest at 94% means 67 students out of their freshmen class of 1124 did not return for their sophomore year). </p>
<p>I’d probably also distinguish between the privates and the publics in how I interpret this data. I’d give more leeway to the publics due to a variety of factors.</p>
<p>Since kids drop out for a wide variety of reasons then, almost by definition, freshman retention rate is a muddy and imperfect sort of stat. But nevertheless, if school has some shockingly high percentage of kids who not come back for their sophomore year, I’d like to know about that when shopping around for schools.</p>
<p>Taxguy</p>
<p>I place a lot importance on four year graduation rates for just the reasons you and many others here have stated. That only about a 100 schools can do this says alot.</p>
<p>Freshman Retention and Alumni Giving are two rating categories USNWR uses that just don’t make sense in evaluating public universities.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>lol. I knew you’d say something like that, hawkette, because my setting the cutoff at the 20 lowest retention rates among the top 50 research universities swept in two of your favorites, Wake Forest and Emory. So let’s see, you think the appropriate cutoff is the 13 lowest out of 50—say a 3.9 or under is bad, but anything over that is OK? lol. Fine, but I’ll let others decide how to interpret that data. To my mind, anything in the 93 to 94 range is borderline—better than 90 or 92, but not as good as 96 or 97. </p>
<p>As for the small numbers phenomenon, you make a good point. But this is just amplified for LACs. At Scripps, for example—a school with a total enrollment of 899—a freshman retention rate of 90.2 means that just 22 students didn’t return for their sophomore year. Cut that number by by 6 to a total of 16 not returning and the retention rate shoots up to 93.9, enough to move Scripps from #3 lowest retention rate among LACs, to a rate that places it above the media for top 50 LACs. For that reason, I’d want to look at these data (and really any data involving LACs) over time; a one-year snapshot might give us a highly misleading picture based on the small numbers phenomenon. But if Scripps’ retention rate hovers around 90% over a period of years, I’d say they might have a problem: it means that 1 out of 10 students isn’t returning, and I’d want to know the reasons for it before sending my kid there.</p>
<p>bc,
I’d actually use your language from # 32</p>
<p>“freshman retention rate becomes an issue when it gets down into the low 90s or below. If nearly 1 in 10 freshmen aren’t returning it suggests something is amiss academically, financially, or socially—or some combination of these”</p>
<p>I don’t consider 94% the low 90s and 94% is actually 1 in 16.</p>
<p>what if a freshman takes a year off after his/her first year and returns to the campus the following year, would this affect the retention rate of a particular school?</p>