Building a freshman class has never been an easy proposition.
But attracting and retaining students today requires admission professionals and their university colleagues to possess a different set of skills than in the past.
“At the most basic level, the students of today and tomorrow are not the students of yesterday or yesteryear,” author Karen Gross writes in Breakaway Learners. “…Many of today’s students are the first in their families to attend college, let alone graduate; many are immigrants; many are low income. Many have experienced trauma or toxic stress.”
The book — now available in paperback and electronic format — will be the subject of our next #NACACreads discussion. The hour-long Twitter chat will kick off at 9 p.m. ET on Dec. 12.
Students walk to class on the University of Central Florida campus. (iStock)
Transfer students are an important part of the University of Central Florida.
In fact, in recent years, the institution has welcomed more transfer students in its incoming class than first-year freshmen — and in the process has created what some consider a national model of excellence while increasing access for underrepresented students.
“We’ve always been concerned with the success of every student, but as our numbers started to increase with transfer students, we really started to focus heavily on how we could work with our transfer population to make them as successful as possible,” said Jennifer Sumner, a UCF administrator.
Helping community college students select courses suited to their interests and finding ways to connect classroom lessons with the real world could help more students persist in higher education, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution.
“The key takeaways are that making it easier for students to navigate the college environment and connect their coursework to their lives can improve student outcomes,” noted report author Elizabeth Mann Levesque.
Nearly half of America’s school districts are located in rural areas, yet the unique needs of these students are too often overlooked in the college search and selection process.
While family income, parental educational attainment, and prior academic achievement all play a role in limiting college access, systemic constraints also come into play – resulting in lower rates of college attendance for rural students when compared to their urban and suburban peers.
One such barrier? Poverty due to the loss of economic opportunities.
Are the families you serve overly concerned about college selectivity?
Researchers at Challenge Success — a nonprofit organization based at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education — released a white paper this fall that calls into question the value of university rankings.
“There is no question that the college admission process can be stressful. We hope that this paper prompts students and families to examine what college success means to them and to question common assumptions about college selectivity,” the authors note in the paper’s executive summary.
What policies and practices are most effective when it comes to race-conscious admission? And how do recent lawsuits — including the ongoing Harvard case — affect the ability of colleges to promote diversity?
An Oct. 24 webinar hosted by the National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA) will address those questions and more. The two-hour program is aimed at university counsel who advise institutions, but is also open to admission professionals and others who are involved in student enrollment and retention. The webinar is presented in cooperation with NACAC.
Did you participate in our #NACACreads chat with Julissa Arce earlier this year?
The author and activist has released a new book about her experiences as an undocumented immigrant.
Someone Like Me — aimed at students ages 11 to 14 — was released last month. Arce told The New York Times that she hopes her story inspires undocumented students to dream big when it comes to higher education and their future.
School profiles are an important tool in the college admission process.
They allow secondary schools to highlight the things that make them unique while helping college admission professionals better understand each school’s student body and academic offerings.
And thanks to NACAC, counselors now have a new resource to reference when creating or updating their institution’s profile. The online database — made available last month — includes links to more than 1,200 profiles from member schools.
Most high school students and their parents are unaware of the actual cost of college, according to a new report from the National Center for Education Statistics. And when they do hazard a guess as to how much it will take to enroll, they often overestimate the price of higher education.
“There may be serious consequences to being uninformed and unsure about college costs and financial aid,” according to the report. “For example, uncertainty about college costs and the availability of financial aid has been associated with underenrollment among low-income and minority students.”
The study looked at students’ perceptions of tuition and fees at a public, four-year college in their state. The findings suggest teens need earlier and better information related to college costs.
Building a freshman class has never been an easy proposition.
