You Got Rejected from Your First Choice College. So What?

The following is a guest post from Robert Kelchen, doctoral candidate in Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Washington Post’s Campus Overload blog recently featured a guest post, “Getting Rejected from Your Dream School(s) isn’t a Bad Thing” by Eric Harris, a junior who attended the University of Maryland after being deferred by his first choice (Duke) and rejected by six of the other eight colleges to which he applied. (He was also accepted by Emory.) Eric’s story is hardly unique, as numerous blogs and websites feature stories of students who were rejected by their first choice college. Most of the popular media accounts of students rejected by their first choice college are from students like Eric—those who applied to a large number of highly selective (and very expensive) colleges and universities and still attended a prestigious institution.

The kinds of students who are typically featured in the media are very likely to enjoy college and graduate in a timely manner, no matter where they end up attending. But the students who should be prominently featured instead are those whose first choice colleges are very different than their other options (much less selective four-year colleges, community colleges, or no college at all). Just-released data from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at UCLA shows that only 58 percent of students attending four-year universities were attending their first choice college in fall 2011; nearly one-fourth of students were rejected by their first choice. This suggests that a fair number of students fall into this category, but little is known about their college outcomes.

As a part of my dissertation, I am using data from the Wisconsin Scholars Longitudinal Study to examine the college experiences of students who attended their first choice college to those who attended another college—either because they were rejected by their first choice or because they were accepted by their first choice but did not attend. WSLS students all come from modest financial backgrounds and were Pell Grant recipients during their first year of college, so it is likely that the cost of college played a much larger role in their college choice process than for students like Eric.

It is important to note that students end up at their first choice college as the result of three decisions: applying to their first choice (not explored in my study), getting accepted, and then attending after being accepted. I model the acceptance and attendance decisions using available information on the students’ demographics and academic preparation, their high school of attendance, and their first choice college. This is an important step in establishing a causal relationship because WSLS students who attended their first choice college tend to come from different backgrounds (especially from more rural areas) than those who did not.

I use interview and survey data to explore whether students’ academic and social integration levels differed between students who attended their first choice and those who did not for either of the above reasons. The interviews suggest that most students reported being happy with their college of attendance, regardless of whether that was their first choice college. (Whether this is actually true or whether this is an example of self-affirmation bias, in which people try to portray a disappointing event in the best possible light, cannot be determined.) There are also few differences between students who attended their first choice and those who did not on survey measures of academic and social integration.

I also use academic outcomes from the University of Wisconsin System and the National Student Clearinghouse to estimate the effects of attending one’s first choice college. After modeling the selection process, I find no statistically significant differences on academic outcomes between students who attended their first choice and either group who did not. (This dissertation chapter is nearly complete, so stay tuned for the full results.)

It appears that being rejected from one’s first choice college is not the end of the world for most students. The psychic costs appear quite high in much of the popular media, but we don’t need to feel too sorry for students who are forced to attend a highly selective college that may have been their seventh choice instead of their first. I spent three years in college working in the admissions office at Truman State University, and I talked with plenty of students for whom Truman was not their first choice. After being rejected by elite, expensive universities, they came to Truman and turned out just fine. So don’t worry too much about getting rejected by your first choice college—especially if paying for college was never one of your concerns. Everything will be okay.

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NEW EXPERIMENTAL STUDY SUGGESTS FINANCIAL AID ENHANCES COLLEGE SUCCESS AMONG THE MOST UNLIKELY GRADUATES

The following is a press release issued by UW-Madison this morning

Results from an ongoing random assignment study of a private grant program in Wisconsin indicate that low-income students who receive Pell Grants and are unlikely to finish college get a sizeable boost in college persistence from additional financial aid. The findings suggest that directing aid to serve the neediest students may be the most equitable and cost-effective approach.

Researchers with the Wisconsin Scholars Longitudinal Study (WSLS) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have been examining the impact of the Fund for Wisconsin Scholars (FFWS) need-based grant program on the educational attainment of its recipients since 2008. FFWS provides $3,500 per year to full-time, federal Pell Grant recipients enrolled at University of Wisconsin System institutions. WSLS researchers have collected survey and interview data on 1,500 students, including 600 grant recipients and a random sample of 900 eligible non-recipients who serve as a control group.

“Our findings suggest that making college more affordable for students who were initially unlikely to succeed in college increased their college persistence rates over the first three years of college by about 17 percentage points,” says Sara Goldrick-Rab, WSLS co-director and associate professor of educational policy studies and sociology.

However, since financial aid programs usually do not explicitly target this particular group of students, prior research has found that the average effects of need-based grants are often modest. “It’s common to focus only on the average effects of financial aid programs, but it’s clear that often policies work better for some people than others,” says Goldrick-Rab. “In this case, the Wisconsin grant really helped some students, didn’t help others, and may even have had adverse consequences for another group.”

While policy discussions about targeting financial aid often focus on financial need, the WSLS researchers also considered challenges faced by first-generation students and those with inadequate academic preparation. According to the study, students without college-educated parents and those with lower test scores were initially much less likely to persist in college, while students with high test scores and whose parents held bachelor’s degrees began with a high probability of finishing. The effects of the additional financial aid provided by the Wisconsin grant were very different for those two groups.

Initial findings indicate the program has a moderate positive impact, on average, on the educational attainment of grant recipients. “Enrollment rates didn’t improve much over three years. But the good news is that some students who were awarded the grant were 28 percent more likely to finish 60 credits over two years, increasing the chances that they will earn a bachelor’s degree on time,” says Doug Harris, WSLS co-director and associate professor of educational policy studies and public affairs.

Given the WSLS is the first random assignment study of a program with a similar structure to the federal Pell Grant, it may have important implications for that program, one of the nation’s largest in the education sector. According to Michael McPherson, President of the Spencer Foundation and noted scholar of higher education policy, “This study is the result of an extraordinary opportunity to bring high-quality experimental research to a vitally important question: the effect of changes in need-based grant aid on outcomes for students already enrolled in college."

Goldrick-Rab, Harris, and co-authors James Benson and Robert Kelchen present and discuss additional findings in a working paper issued by the Institute for Research on Poverty entitled “Conditional Cash Transfers and College Persistence: Evidence from a Randomized Need-Based Grant Program.” It can be downloaded, along with an executive summary, here.

The authors will discuss their results at 8 a.m. on Friday, July 8 in room 159 of the Education Building of the University of Wisconsin-Madison as part of a WSLS-sponsored conference entitled “Affordability and College Attainment in Wisconsin Public Higher Education.” More information is available here.

The WSLS is a collaborative effort among the University of Wisconsin System, the Wisconsin Technical College System, and the Wisconsin Higher Educational Aids Board. The study is also supported by UW-Madison's Wisconsin Center for Educational Research, Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education, and Institute for Research on Poverty. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the William T. Grant Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation provided funding for the research.

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For more on this story please see coverage in Inside Higher Ed and the Chronicle of Higher Education, as well as the Wisconsin State Journal

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What Are You Doing This Summer?

Want to work with a talented group of students and faculty, helping find ways to make Wisconsin public higher education more affordable? Then please consider joining the Wisconsin Scholars Longitudinal Study as an undergraduate or graduate intern this summer!

The WSLS is seeking students who will commit to at least 10 hours/week of work for summer and fall 2011. The ideal candidates are responsible, trustworthy, and detail-oriented. Those studying sociology, psychology, economics, or political science are especially needed.

Potential tasks include: (1) piloting a study of undergraduates using text-messaging, (2) interviewing students, (3) transcribing and coding interviews, and (4) Using STATA to clean, code, and analyze survey data. Interns will be included in regular biweekly staff meetings and social events.

We offer class credit and/or pay based on experience.

If you are interested, please email Alison Bowman at ambowman@wisc.edu by May 13. Include a resume and short description of your relevant skills and time availability.

Thanks!

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Seeking a PostDoctoral Fellow!

Hi folks-- sorry for the long absence-- I'm hoping to hire a postdoc (or doctoral student) in the next year and wondering if any of our readers might be interested? Here are details...

Sara

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Wisconsin Scholars Longitudinal Study

Position Announcement: Funding for Junior Researcher of Color

Graduate Project Assistantship or Postdoctoral Fellowship

Sara Goldrick-Rab, Assistant Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Sociology at UW-Madison, seeks a talented junior researcher of color to join the Wisconsin Scholars Longitudinal Study in 2011 as it prepares to enroll its second cohort of students.

The WSLS is the first-ever longitudinal randomized controlled trial of need-based financial aid. It is a mixed-methods study following two cohorts of Wisconsin Pell grant recipients through college and into the workforce. It is led by an interdisciplinary team of researchers, including co-director Douglas N. Harris, and includes collection of administrative, survey, and in-depth interview data. For more information, please see the WSLS website.

Dr. Goldrick-Rab holds a William T. Grant Scholars award for her work on the WSLS. Her project, “Rethinking College Choice in America,” applies ideas and methods from developmental psychology and behavioral economics to examine how college students' use of time, emotional experiences and amounts of sleep interact with financial aid and affect chances of earning degrees.

The Scholars award includes the opportunity to seek supplementary funding (also from the William T. Grant Foundation) to help Scholars build strong mentoring relationships with students of color. According to the Foundation, “these awards address two issues that receive insufficient attention and resources: how to be a good mentor and challenges facing people of color in research careers.” The Foundation estimates awarding three to four awards in the amount of $60,000 for mentoring doctoral students and $85,000 for mentoring postdoctoral fellows (inclusive of a maximum of 7.5 percent in indirect costs). Funding will begin on July 1, 2011, and end June 30, 2012. Mentors and mentees will come together during annual winter meetings designed to support the mentoring relationships, Scholars’ development as mentors, and Junior Researchers’ development as researchers.

If selected and funded, the Junior Researcher will work with Dr. Goldrick-Rab on her Scholars project and also on an independent inquiry related to the second cohort of students participating in the WSLS.

Eligible applicants must meet the following criteria, according to Foundation rules:
• Junior Researchers of Color may be African American, Asian or Pacific Islander American, Latino, and/or Native American.
• Junior Researchers may be full-time doctoral students or postdoctoral fellows.
• At minimum, students must be in their second year of doctoral studies at the onset of the award.
• The Junior Researcher must be housed at UW-Madison or a nearby college or university.

In addition, per the needs of the WSLS and Dr. Goldrick-Rab’s project, eligible applicants must also possess all of the following qualifications:
• A background in social science coursework, preferably in sociology or anthropology and/or training in a public policy or social work program.
• Prior experience conducting in-depth interviews .
• Statistics skills, include comfort with regression analysis and preferably familiarity with STATA.
• Ability to demonstrate attention to detail, strong writing skills, and the capacity to work independently.
In short, the highly qualified applicant will have already begun to emerge as a skilled mixed-method researcher, or researcher-in-training.

This position is currently in the planning stage. At this time, Dr. Goldrick-Rab seeks interested students who would like to collaborate on an application for either a project assistantship or a postdoctoral fellowship, to begin in July 1, 2011 and conclude June 30, 2012. The final application is due March 2, 2011 and the award decision will be made in June 2011. The applicant is required to jointly prepare the application with Dr. Goldrick-Rab (as the Foundation mandates). To the extent that the student goes beyond the application planning and participates in laying the groundwork for Cohort 2, that work may be compensated on an hourly basis (to be negotiated), regardless of whether the award is granted.

If interested, students should contact Dr. Goldrick-Rab by November 5, 2010. Please send an email that includes a cover letter explaining reasons for interest, along with a CV and contact information for at least two professors who can provide recommendations to srab@education.wisc.edu.

Thank you for your interest!

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Race and Debt

The College Board's Advocacy and Policy Center reports that "too many students are borrowing more than they are likely able to manage" and this is particularly true for black undergraduates. According to researchers, fully 27% of black BA recipients borrow more than $30,000 for college, compared to 16% of white BA recipients. The gap is especially large among independent students (those who are a bit older, are parents, or independent for other reasons)-- more than 1 in 3 black independent students who earn BA's graduate with high levels of debt, compared to less than 1 in 4 white independents.

This is a trend we need to know more about. There have been a few articles written about race differences in college financing patterns and receptivity to financial aid, but none have been especially adept at sorting out the underlying reasons for variation by race/ethnicity. Are the patterns attributable to factors which map onto race in this country (e.g. poverty, segregation, school quality, etc) or to factors more closely related to beliefs, expectations, values, etc?

I'm working on this question in the context of a study I co-direct in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Scholars Longitudinal Study is exploring the impact of need-based financial aid on college outcomes. We've got very rich survey data from students' first two years of college, as we explore it we're beginning to learn a lot. For example, the data (from a sample of more than 2,000 Pell Grant recipients attending 2-year, 4-year, and technical colleges) indicate that black undergraduates are far more likely than white students to know who to contact in their financial aid office and to seek out help, yet at the same time they are less likely to feel comfortable doing so. They are twice as likely as white students to fill out the FAFSA without any help, and almost half as likely to get FAFSA assistance from a parent. In their first year of college alone, they are more than twice as likely to report receiving a private, non-federal loan.

As the College Board report concludes, too much college debt can contribute to future financial insecurity. Many of us hope that increasing rates of educational attainment among students from racial/ethnic minority backgrounds will perpetuate a virtuous cycle benefiting all families-- but those prospects will undoubtedly be diminished if debt takes its toll.

Image courtesy of John Fewings

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Come Work For Me!

The WSLS is hiring! Doug Harris and I seek an Associate Researcher to work on our randomized trial of need-based aid. Have an MA in public policy or social sciences, and some statistical skills? We need you! Click here for more details on the position, and visit our website for details on the study.

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UW-Madison: Researchers launch landmark study of financial aid

Sara has been busy. Don't believe me?

Check out this press release that went out earlier this week from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And check out the study's web site.

A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers is conducting a groundbreaking study of the long-term effects of financial aid on college students. Christopher Jencks, professor of social policy at Harvard University, calls the Wisconsin Scholars Longitudinal Study (WSLS) a "landmark study of financial aid."

Participants include nearly 6,000 Wisconsin residents receiving a federal Pell grant while enrolled at each of the 42 public colleges statewide. Many are also grantees of the Fund for Wisconsin Scholars (FFWS), a foundation established by UW-Madison alumni John and Tashia Morgridge. FFWS uses random assignment to select recipients.

"It's often very difficult to isolate effects of aid, since low-income students are at the greatest risk of not finishing college, and they get the most aid. By studying a program that chooses its recipients at random, we have the chance to learn exactly how and why financial aid matters," says Sara Goldrick-Rab, assistant professor of educational policy studies and sociology. "In these economic times, producing this kind of information is more essential than ever."

The researchers expect to have preliminary results within the next year on how and why aid affects college coursework and persistence. But they have designed the WSLS to go even further, tracking participants for a decade or more. As a result, they will be able to examine effects on college completion, employment, earnings, and later outcomes. They are also conducting interviews with students to learn more about how money is affecting their college experiences.

"This study is very important because it will inform both potential private donors and government agencies about the role of financial assistance in college and how aid policies can be improved to expand degree completion," says FFWS Executive Director Mary Gulbrandsen.

Goldrick-Rab is co-directing the study with Douglas N. Harris, an economist and assistant professor of educational policy studies. In addition, Christopher Taber, professor of economics, and Aaron Brower, vice provost for teaching and learning and professor of social work, are co-investigators.

The WSLS is a collaborative effort among the University of Wisconsin System, the Wisconsin Technical College System, and the Wisconsin Higher Educational Aids Board. The study is also supported by UW-Madison's Wisconsin Center for Educational Research, Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education, and Institute for Research on Poverty.

Nearly $800,000 in financial support has been provided by three foundations, including the Spencer Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation.

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