<p>I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers were for FOUR years, but about 90% after five years???</p>
<p>Does this mean:</p>
<p>(1) All elite schools are very hard, or
(2) Kids like to stay in school longer (change majors), or
(3) They admitted too many kids who don't belong there.</p>
<p>I suspect for Stanford that it could mean that they redshirt athletes, and let them take 4/5 ths of a normal number of credits. Not certain about that though. I did click on six separate players at random on the football roster and every one of them redshirted, so one might guess that few athletes in major sports graduate from Stanford in four years, but significant numbers do so in five years. ie, the four your number would be a lot lower.</p>
<p>Yes...thanks for bringinig that point. Actually, I was concerned more about 4 year graduation rate. If the five year is about 90%, the four year could be even lower. Say it is 80%. Then 20% or about 350 kids have a problem graduatting in 4 years. They all can't all be red-shirted.</p>
<p>If you are wondering why everyone does not graduate in 4 years there are numerous reasons, for example: (a) engineering majors very often take longer because the number of required courses makes it difficult to do it in four years; (b) many do co-ops -- go to work at a company for a semester or even more which helps them get jobs when they do graduate; (c) some take a semester or more in a foreign country and do not accumulate many credit hours doing so; (d) many students have to complete one or two "general education" courses after senior year either because there was always a scheduling conflict preventing it from being taken or it is the one course the student has just been putting off forever -- that is another thing you will find with engineering majors in particular: they put off forever taking those darn cultural studies courses that they dread taking; (e) many may carry a minimal load (like 12 semester hours rather than 16) for one semester or more because of such things as sports or doing a major research project with a prof that consumes huge amounts of time; (f) many switch majors mid-stream and then have to play a semester or more of catch-up in the new chosen major. In other words, statistics are provided for 5 or 6 year graduation rates because colleges are aware that four year figures are misleading and do not reflect the reality that huge numbers of students will take longer.</p>
<p>There are always "good" reasons for graduating in 5-6 years that have little to do with scholarship. Serious illness, study abroad that prevents meeting some graduation requirements, voluntary leave of absence, participation in a 3-2 bachelors/masters program (probably not at Stanford), a late change of major. There are probably others too.</p>
<p>Check out the 5-year graduation rates for nonelite schools. They tend to be much, much lower than places like Stanford's, which along with HPYS have some of the country's highest graduation rates. HPYS and similar schools have the luxury of having some of the most highly motivated, well prepared students in the country.</p>
<p>Even the students who get in because they are athletes, legacies or donors' kids are still among top students in the country.</p>
<p>At public instituitions, graduation rates tend to be low because:
1. Students flunk out at higher rates (particularly true at lower ranked public universities that have to accept all students with high school diplomas)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Due to overcrowding, students can't get into the courses they need to graduate, and therefore take longer to graduate.</p></li>
<li><p>Students can't afford to go to the university due to getting far less financial aid than the most competitive colleges (which have sky high endowments) are able to give. Students have to take time off to earn money for college or they end up completely dropping out because they lack money to continue.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Some Stanford students coterm, getting both a bachelors and a masters degree. They get both at the end of, minimum, 5 years, so they would look like it took 5 years to get the bachelors.</p>
<p>At most places the 5 year grad rate is very close to the ultimate grad rate. Anyone who transfers out is counted as not graduating, even if they get their degree elsewhere. So, someone who discovers that they really want a small school, or they don't like California, transfers to some other great school, and graduates in 4 years total would never graduate from Stanford, and lower the 4, 5 or 6 year graduation rate.</p>
<p>This discussion is a good example of how one must interpret data within a context - the context varying depending on what question(s) you want to explore.</p>
<p>This data, in and of itself, means little. If a trend, up or down, were apparent, the trend would raise issues for further exploration. </p>
<p>OTOH, the data, when compared to other institutions, can be meaningful, as others have pointed out. For example, it would be interesting to see a comparison of 5 year grad rates of otherwise comparable institutions. USNWR, as I recall, has some data related to this.</p>
<p>One thing this data reminds me of is that elite U's have no dropouts. People just go on extended leave of absence. I suspect Gates is still on a leave of absence from Harvard, for example. I suspect these "leave of absences" account for a good percentage of those that do not graduate.</p>
<p>I am not a fan nor detractor of Stanford but I thought it was important to point out that Stanford's record (94% six-year) is very, very good on 6yr graduation rates. It is topped by 6 national uni's-HYP, Dartmouth, Brown and Notre Dame. It is topped by 2 LAC's-Williams and Amherst. </p>
<p>I'm using as my data source , the 2005 printed edition of the USNWR, pp.82-89.</p>
<p>Stanford's 98% Freshman retention rate matches the highest attained by any school.</p>
<p>If you take into consideration that Stanford and Notre Dame are the only schools listed above providing athletic scholarships, I think they should feel quite proud of their "rates".</p>
<p>I am NOT dissing the following schools, some of which I like better than Stanford, but look at these 6yr grad rates-Cal Tech 89%, JHU 87%,CMU 81%, Case 78% or on the LAC side-Vassar 88%, Smith 86%, Grinnell 85%.</p>
<p>Of the private schools my daughter has on her present "apply to" list 6yr rates range from 92% to 67%. As a parent we ought to find out why the kids failing to graduate are failing to graduate, and I'll bet that's what Simba is doing as we speak ;).</p>
<p>Anecdotal evidence re athletes at Stanford: I know someone whose kid is a recruited athlete at Stanford. He didn't take less units than "normal", but the coaches make him take more. </p>
<p>Why? Because many might leave Stanford early to go pro, the coaches want to get them as close to graduating as possible. High graduation rate for a specific athletic program is a marketing tool used by coaches to impress the high school athlete and (ESPECIALLY) his or her parents.</p>
<p>"One thing this data reminds me of is that elite U's have no dropouts. People just go on extended leave of absence. I suspect Gates is still on a leave of absence from Harvard, for example. I suspect these "leave of absences" account for a good percentage of those that do not graduate.
"</p>
<p>I don't think that's accurate. While students may have extended leaves of absence and be welcome back whenever they return, they still would be counted as not having graduated when the graduation rates are calculated.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education has published graduation rates for black students at some of the nation's top colleges. From the data, one also can figure out the graduation rates for white students. As various research had indicated, the more rigorous the college, the higher the graduation rate for all students. That's probably due to the student's abilities and motivation and the fact that the most competitive colleges also are among the country's most generous when it comes to need-based aid.</p>
<p>At Harvard, the graduation rate for black students was 92%. It was 97% for white students.</p>
<p>At Princeton, it was 90% for black students, 94% for white students.</p>
<p>At University of Michigan, it was 60% for black students, 87% for white ones.</p>
<p>Unless I'm mistaken, graduation rates do NOT include transfer students: students who transfer out of Stanford will automatically not be counted in the graduation rates, thus making them less than 100%.</p>
<p>Freshman retention rate can be viewed as a "satisfaction index" for the school. </p>
<p>Graduation rate is a "satisfaction index" that also includes facets like amount of academic support available, sufficiency of financial aid, and maybe it even reflects # of "marginally qualified" students admitted.</p>
<p>Obviously the large state schools retention will be lower, because there are kids who pick them purely for economic or location reasons; these kids may not have good "fit." Some get in to one UC, but from the get go they really covet another-- and they ultimately transfer.</p>
<p>Furthermore schools with more poor and middle class kids will have lower retention stats because a garden variety family emergency can compel a kid to drop out or transfer closer to home.</p>
<p>The published graduation rates also do not include kids who transfer INTO a college. As near as I can tell, a transfer student is not counted in the graduation rates anywhere.</p>
<p>I still do not understand the conclusions that derived from the graduation statistics. </p>
<p>For instance does a comparison of Caltech and Stanford tell us much about the strength or integrity of the education?</p>
<p>How does rampant grade inflation and the "fluff class" factor in the 4, 5 and 6 year graduation rates? Would super easy programs coupled with generous pass/fail systems NOT guarantee higher graduation rates? </p>
<p>While I realize that the RAW information is far from trivial, it seems that most conclusions are dubious at best.</p>
<p>I also have much more detailed information on my personal website about graduation rates broken down by SATs of enrolled students (can't post the link for fear of moderation, but you can connect by clicking on my name to your left and then "Carolyn's Personal Website") Scroll down about halfway through the page for the graduation rate information.</p>
<p>Unless I'm mistaken, graduation rates do NOT include transfer students: students who transfer out of Stanford will automatically not be counted in the graduation rates, thus making them less than 100%.>></p>
<p>Aries, you are correct. Getting info. on transfer rates is tricky, however, as not all schools report them. I have managed to pull out some data from the Department of Education and other websites, however.</p>
<p>My personal opinion is that graduation rates are a combination of many factors: the level of student preparation for college level work, the amount of support provided by the school, financial issues faced by students (especially at schools with weak financial aid), student satisfaction, and many other factors. I have found it very informative to also look at breakdowns of the grad rates, looking at sex, race, size of school, average SAT scores of enrolled students, etc. As I said, I have a link on my website, <a href="http://www.collegeresults.org%5B/url%5D">www.collegeresults.org</a>, that lets you gather this information in a simple way - well worth playing around with, as the information can sometimes be surprising and revealing.</p>
<p>The link you provided to the sortable database in the earlier thread is fantastic. Thanks.</p>
<p>It's really enlightening to look at the grad rates broken down by gender and race -- which colleges graduate a higher percentage of males, which a higher percentage of females.</p>
<p>Sometimes the devil is in the details. For example, Swarthmore's overall grad rate for Af-Am students is 12% lower than their overall grad rate. But, in looking at the devil in the details, the grad rate for black females is actually higher than the school average and among the highest in the country. The grad rate for black males is abysmal: 32% below the school average.</p>
<p>Conversely, there are similar schools that graduate a higher percentage of black males than females (and a higher percentage of males than females overall). Reflective of a difference in culture?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As various research had indicated, the more rigorous the college, the higher the graduation rate for all students. That's probably due to the student's abilities and motivation and the fact that the most competitive colleges also are among the country's most generous when it comes to need-based aid.<<</p>
</blockquote>
<br>
<p>Financial aid is a big deal when it comes to increasing graduation rates. I think of my friends who didn't finish college--they ran out of money and went to work, many never to return.</p>