Be A College Admission Data Scientist

The first and second pieces in this three-part series examined issues around transparency in college admission, the depth of information that colleges have on students, and how applicants can access data on colleges. This final installment explores what additional information applicants should be demanding as they seek to make a good match. It also calls on colleges to do better in providing data and being transparent.

Applying to college can feel uncertain and even mysterious. Students and supporters are inundated with information through marketing and media, and it quickly becomes an overwhelming experience. It doesn’t have to be. In its most perfect form, the college search should be about making a good match between one’s strengths and interests and a school that will support their aspirations and growth. For this to happen, students need better, more accessible, data.

A Call to Action

Consider all you know about college admission. What is missing? How can this experience be more transparent? What is helpful, and what is not? How is information best delivered? These are the questions that students, and those who support them, should be asking and that colleges should be looking to solve.

Admission Statistics

There is much that an overall acceptance rate or average admitted student GPA and test scores will not tell you. Jon Boeckenstedt, the vice provost of enrollment at Oregon State University and author of the Higher Ed Data Stories blog, suggests we should be seeking more granular data like “admit rates by subgroups.” For example, he says statistics on recruited athletes, Early Decision vs. Regular Decision applicants, legacies, and the “unhooked” would be helpful. In that last group especially, he explains that “the real chances of admission might be one in three hundred, rather than three in one hundred,” adding, “I think students have a right to know that going in.”

What other information should applicants expect when making important choices?

Standardized Testing

There is no shortage of headlines about standardized testing in college admission and for our purposes, it is not worth debating the inherent inequities and negative impact that these high-stakes assessments have on many young people. Regardless, there needs to be more clarity about whether or not scores are used, and if so, how. The National Center for Fair and Open Testing (FairTest) is an advocacy organization that seeks to advance “quality education and equal opportunity by promoting fair, open, valid and educationally beneficial evaluations of students, teachers, and schools.” Their resources and searchable database are great starting points for applicants to find updated information on testing policies. However, their resources are dependent upon the quality and quantity of information that is shared by colleges.

Matthew DeGreeff is the dean of college counseling and student enrichment at Middlesex School. He says that for schools that do not require testing, applicants need “transparent information about how test-optional works in each college’s admissions process, including a breakdown of the percentage of students who applied and then were admitted with and without testing.” Ideally, we would have access to this information for specific demographics and other categories. There also needs to be more transparency about the use of standardized testing in awarding financial scholarships, as some schools require scores for consideration.

Institutional Priorities

In the holistic admission process, colleges want to know about each student’s preparation, passion, and priorities. However, there is a double standard with a great disparity in how much each school shares about their institutional priorities in admission. Students can sometimes glean information from a college’s mission and/or website about the school’s goals and criteria for assessing applications, but it is certainly not easy. DeGreeff would like to see more transparency in “how admissions committees weigh and measure values-driven admissions.” He asks, “How are they determining character traits that they value and how are they measuring it? How can they signal ways in which high schools and applicants can articulate these values better and more clearly?”

If an institution is hyper-focused on increasing the “yield” of how many students accept their offer of admission, are they factoring a student’s “Demonstrated Interest” into their application review? If so, DeGreeff encourages colleges to communicate what data points matter for showing this interest and how they are weighted.” If an admission committee is going to show a preference for a student who has visited their campus or had another specific contact with their office, this needs to be outlined clearly for students.

Outcomes

Angel Pérez, CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), says, “We need better data on student success and college outcomes.” He adds, “most institutions share data about the percentage of students who get a job after graduation, but we don’t know much about what happens to those graduates years down the line.” He points out that “education is about the long term gain and a job your first year out of college is not a great measure of success.”

Brian Zucker at Human Capital Research Corporation (HCRC) agrees, asking “what does it really tell us that 96% of students have a job within six months of graduation? HCRC conducts an annual survey of over 100,000 newly admitted students at four-year institutions. He says that the “highest priorities for admitted students are increasingly career-focused,” and unfortunately, too often outcome information from colleges and universities is anecdotal or simply touts the brand names of companies that hire from their campus. Zucker explains that “experiential learning joins at the hip with careers and outcomes and students associate study abroad, internships, research, and other higher-order college learning opportunities beyond the traditional classroom as giving them an edge.” He adds that “schools are not communicating these well. They silo these experiences without hard numbers, students’ assessments, or correlated outcomes.” He argues that our nation’s higher education system has a massive void in schools surveying their graduates, saying “we need a national graduate database and then for colleges to systemically communicate this deeper level data.”

Debt

Student loan debt is a real crisis and obstacle for many graduates as they enter the workforce. Unfortunately, the data on debt is also woefully inadequate. Zucker warns about taking most available debt data at face value. He explains that the “three-year out cohort default rate doesn’t account for forbearance or the 20 years it now takes on average to repay loans.” He adds that “a quarter of all federal borrowers are in forbearance and the interest clock is still ticking.” It is always important to consider data in context and dig below surface-level conclusions. Instead, he suggests that students should be demanding more useful information like the “obligation ratio”, which is the monthly loan payment as a percent of pretax income. This has very real implications on quality of life and financial health post-graduation.

Investment

Return on Investment (ROI) is–and should be– heavy on the minds of many applicants and their supporters. Janet Weller, the director of college counseling at The Harpeth Hall School, says, “We’ve fielded more and more questions from parents about ROI.” Before we can assess the “return”, we need to understand the “investment”. Newsflash: though there are affordable pathways to a degree, most four-year colleges are unconscionably expensive. But just how “cumulatively expensive” is not always transparent. Zucker warns that “we are not communicating the true price of what college will cost ‘all in’.” He says that “most reported metrics are the first-year cost of attendance, which, except for a small cadre of well-resourced colleges, is not constant across the four—or more—years that it takes to complete a degree.” As a result, families do not know the true cost of earning a degree. Zucker likens it to buying a car and says, “you wouldn’t purchase a vehicle only knowing part of the price and drive off unsure of what the ultimate cost will be.”

He also points out that for all the insight we glean from Net Price Calculators (the federally mandated webpage that all schools must provide to disclose the net cost of attendance given a family’s particular circumstance), “schools have an enormous amount of latitude as to what amount they can provide–and still be in compliance.” He adds, “the Net Cost of Attendance is also reported under the federal data college system, known as IPEDS (Integrated Postsecondary Data Collection System), but unfortunately, the federal government has kept to the same five income bands it established nearly two decades ago, with the top band being an outdated $110,000.” To make informed, financially responsible decisions, families need better data on cost.

Return

Much of the available data from colleges talk more generally about the outcomes of their graduates. Weller says, “We need quantifiable outcomes based on major or program of study that can help create a framework for better understanding ROI.” Anthony Carnevale is a research professor and director of The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW), a research and policy institute that studies “the links between education, career qualifications, and workforce demands.” He says, “In our work, we’ve found that employment and earnings outcomes can vary more by program than by institution or level of educational attainment.” He emphasizes that “college is a substantial investment of time and financial resources, and people need access to program-level data on returns on investment (based on earnings outcomes and costs) to make informed decisions about their futures.” He adds, “CEW is currently working on developing new mechanisms to get this important information into the hands of students and their parents.” For example, he explains that they are working on a “forthcoming report on the ROI of individual business programs at the associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degree levels.”

The return on a college education is not simply a financial matter. Jonathan Burdick, vice provost for enrollment at Cornell University argues that we need better information on “expected learning outcomes at the college level.” He says that “with bachelor’s degrees being a more ubiquitous basis for economic participation, it’s time to be more serious about what, minimally, a bachelor’s degree represents in terms of language literacy, numeracy, collaborative and creative work product, and even some core tenets of knowledge about various sciences and histories.” Try to find this in an easily digestible, transparent presentation.

Question Your Questions

Whether you are starting to research colleges, visiting campuses, or making your final decision, go deep. What is important for you to understand and why? Retention rate is good to know, but not in a void. The national average for students returning to their college for their second year is around two-thirds at four-year colleges. But what does a 66% retention rate really mean? Why are those other 33% leaving? Is it financial? Is it because the college ended its football program? Are the students that leave disproportionately in certain majors or from out of state? Is there a notable difference in retention rate by demographic? Schools should have these answers, and you should expect transparency.

You might be asking about student experiences like class size and internships, or perhaps you are exploring cost and outcomes. Regardless, consider the types of questions you are asking. This worksheet will guide you in framing your research.

Data Scientists

Programs in information science are increasingly popular, which is not surprising given that in the next ten years, jobs in this high-paying sector are predicted to increase by 22%. In the college search and application experience, students, and those who support them, need to act like data scientists. Ultimately the availability and transparency of data on admission, cost, and outcomes are irrelevant unless it is used wisely by savvy consumers. The reality is, however, that few of us are data scientists. Though I can do a lot with my degrees in psychology and Spanish, crunching information to inform decisions is not among them. This is exponentially true for the average high school student, many of whom do not have adequate support in their college search.

Richard Weissbourd is the faculty director of Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the lead author of the Turning the Tide report, a collaborative statement from college admission leaders that seeks to reduce achievement pressure, emphasize ethical engagement, and level the playing field in college admission. He says that we need to consider information transparency in admission through an equity lens. He points out that “it is not just the availability of the data but who the messenger is and the mode of delivery.” He agrees that we need better, deeper information, but emphasizes the importance of “messaging that resonates with students and is easier to digest through platforms that are accessible like TikTok, meeting students where they are.” Weissbourd calls for a multidimensional approach with more “message testing to see what information resonates and how they absorb it.”

The Way Forward

Clearly, there is work to do towards providing more transparent, quality information about college admission, accessibility, and affordability. In an age of information overload and creative “massaging” of data, it is incumbent upon colleges and universities to continue to seek approaches that better represent the value and experience of education on their campuses. Systematically we need to standardize the delivery of this information in equitable, logical, and comprehensible ways. Meanwhile, students and those who support them must look beyond facile averages that a basic web search will produce and demand better from the institutions of which day hope to be part. After all, “knowledge is power.”