Predicting the Likelihood of Matriculation for College Applicants

This paper reports on the collection and analysis of survey data directed toward eliciting those characteristics of the institution, applicant, and applicant's family which affect the matriculation decision. Survey data were collected from freshman students accepted for 1981 and 1982. Discrimin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Research in higher education 1984-01, Vol.21 (3), p.317-328
Main Authors: Perry, Ronald F., Rumpf, David L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cooperation
Cooperative education
Discriminants
Parsimony
Questionnaires
School admission
School campuses
School surveys
Student surveys
Universities
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Summary:This paper reports on the collection and analysis of survey data directed toward eliciting those characteristics of the institution, applicant, and applicant's family which affect the matriculation decision. Survey data were collected from freshman students accepted for 1981 and 1982. Discriminant analysis of both a parsimonious and an inclusive set of questions items was conducted, demonstrating that a small subset of the items could predict matriculation with an overall accuracy of 70% correct. Also, there was marked consistency in the effective set of predictor variables over the two year period. Using factor analysis it was shown that all of the predictor variables could be grouped into four composite variables reflecting institutional characteristics, admissions office activities, family attributes, and the cooperative education plan. Finally, we suggest ways in which the results may influence recruiting activities so that limited resources may yield more matriculants.
ISSN:0361-0365
1573-188X
DOI:10.1007/BF00974865