[Ohiogift] [OATAG] High Achieving students skipping college

[Melanie Johnson]

Margaret,

I suspect the data about drop-out rates is accurate, but I also suspect the explanation is wrong.

Having been a high-achieving student who attended the honors program of less selective state school (I was admitted to the Ivy League and chose to attend a local state school.), I think I can shed some light on the higher drop-out rate. One thing to keep in mind is that many (if not most) students who enroll in less selective colleges do so because of the sort of financial, health, family circumstances that would lead to a higher dropout rate. Also, if you are not certain you want to or will be able to finish college, taking on  a smaller debt or working your way through school is a much better plan. There is perhaps no worse choice than to attend a highly selective college for three years and drop out with a mountain of debt and no degree. 

I have also heard that highly selective schools have a higher proportion of "hardworking high achievers" and that this gives students who have never been challenged plenty of peer examples of how to work hard and study. Since many high achievers have never learned to work hard before college, the sudden need to do so causes a fair number to lose confidence and drop out. Highly selective colleges seem to mitigate this by having enough students who know how to work hard and are bright enough for the students who never have to identify with and emulate. Very successful students at less selective colleges often choose to live off campus to get away from the party atmosphere (and the noise.)

In any case, I doubt the statistic has much to do with challenge. I went to a top ranked "party school," but the physics program was excellent preparation for graduate school. It was clear in graduate school that my program compared well with other American programs. To some degree this was because the department was so small that it had no clear dividing line between the graduate students in the well-respected research groups and the undergraduates. I suspect most schools have some majors that are sufficiently challenging. While there are a greater proportion of programs at top schools that are challenging, and the general ed. is probably more challenging, the big difference in the top schools seems to be a more competitive culture. This can be a boon to some students, but others exit the top school and return to less selective schools simply because they don't like the culture.   


Melanie


________________________________
 From: Margaret DeLacy <margaretdelacy at comcast.net>
To: Tagfam at listserv.icors.org; Ohiogift at lists.service.ohio-state.edu; OATAG at yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 11:58 AM
Subject: [OATAG] High Achieving students skipping college
 
Friends:

Below is a link to and press release from the strategic data project at the Harvard University School of Education.

Please note that this is a press release about the findings--not a published or peer-reviewed article. 

In addition, Harvard presumably has a vested interest in encouraging high-achieving students to apply to more selective schools.

Moreover, even for high-achieving students, college may not always be the best option.

However, I found the SDP finding that "students are more likely to drop out from colleges that are not sufficiently academically challenging for them" notable if it holds up to further scrutiny.

Margaret



STRATEGIC DATA PROJECT PROVIDES ADDITIONAL FINDINGS ON COLLEGE-GOING PATTERNS 

Research Shows That Many High Achieving High School 
Students Do Not Attend College 

Cambridge, MA. (December 17, 2012)  According to findings released today by researchers at the Strategic Data Project (SDP), as many as 16 percent of the students in SDP partner districts who are high achieving, as indicated by superior grades and SAT scores, do not attend college once they complete high school. In addition, some high-achieving students who do attend college but opt to enroll in less selective postsecondary schools meet with less success than those who choose more selective colleges and universities. 
Based at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, SDP is releasing a set of three Strategic Performance Indicators (SPIs) today that challenge common assumptions about college-going patterns in U.S. school districts and provide deeper insight into the health and performance of school districts. SDP developed these indicators through a series of studies conducted in partnership with eight large urban school systems across the United States. 
“Whether it is by looking closely at ninth graders who are struggling academically, tracking where and what happens when students attend college, or by isolating the impact of individual schools on similar students, SDP’s analysis continues to show that there is much to be gained by looking more deeply at the data,” said SDP Executive Director Sarah Glover. “We hope this informationin the hands of superintendents, principals, guidance counselors, parents, and students in our partner districtswill allow all of those people to make decisions that can significantly improve student outcomes.” SDP 2 2 
SDP’s analyses link student records from K12 districts to college enrollment records maintained by the National Student Clearinghouse, enabling student trajectories to be examined from grade school and high school all the way into college. These indicators allow K12 leaders to have a finer-grained understanding regarding patterns of college readiness, college enrollment, and college persistence among their high school students, and to uncover variability that may have never been detected using usual methods of data reporting. 
The three SPIs being released today are: 1) College Choice, 2) Off-Track Status in High School, and 3) The High School Effect. 
College Choice uncovers a group of highly successful students in each district who do not attend college at all or enroll in colleges and universities that are less challenging than those for which they are academically prepared. In fact, across districts examined in these analyses, between 7 and 16 percent of high performing students do not enroll in college. Other high achieving students opt to attend less selective postsecondary institutions. Additional analyses, conducted by SDP and others, confirm that students are more likely to drop out from colleges that are not sufficiently academically challenging for them. 

Margaret



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