| Lisbeth Goble
Northwestern University
Linking college choice to college success: Finding a 'good fit'
FINAL REPORT
Choosing a college is one of the first important decisions that many young adults undertake. Popular media suggests how students should find an appropriate college based on traditional practices (Hallet, 2008; Kulman, 2007), yet, the reality experienced by new kinds of students and colleges is largely ignored in the college choice literature. This dissertation addresses key components of the college choice process to provide empirically-based evidence about what matters for traditional college students.The first study considers the antecedents to college enrollment and specifically unplanned enrollments. It addresses how students use college-related information, changes in this information over high school, and its relation to diverted or realized college enrollments. Findings suggest that information use across high school varies greatly. Certain sources have positive impacts on student follow-through on four-year college plans. Counselors are shown to be particularly important for low-SES students in the realization of their college plans.
The second study focuses on issues of accountability in higher education by addressing policymakers’Äô suggestions of using institutional graduation rates as a college choice criterion. This chapter examines the assumptions on which the use of graduation rates is based and how they compare with empirical reality. While there is an appeal to the use of graduation rate as a choice criterion, this study shows that for most students, there is no relationship between institutional graduation rate and individual degree completion. Other institutional measures ’Äì percent part-time students and school selectivity (based on SAT scores) ’Äì may be more useful in predicting degree completion.
The last study focuses on the role of college proximity in college choice providing descriptive analysis of students’Äô preferences for college location, where students attend college and how these relate to the colleges they attend and ultimate degree completion. There is great variability in student preferences for college and how far students travel for college. While actual distance to college is not related to degree completion outcomes for most students, it is related to the types of colleges that students attend. However, the preference for location is actually related with those who prefer to go away having increased chances degree completion.
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