"Level of Applicant's Interest" now recorded in 05-06 Common Data Sets

[Papa Chicken]

I thought this was an interesting new development.

For those of you unfamiliar with the "Common Data Set", its a standardized form filled out by colleges on numerous data, including admissions statistics. Please see richs73cas' "IMPORTANT" thread over in the College Search forum for CDS link listings.......many, many colleges have them, and they are in part what USNews uses as raw material for their rankings & college profiles.
Links to the Common Data Sets Posted by Colleges

In any case, the standardized Section C of the CDS is termed "First-time first-year (freshman) admissions", and contains, among other things, the college's ranking of importance of several admissions criteria, in academic & non-academic categories, section C7. Each category is rated either Very Important, Important, Considered, or Not Considered. Section C7 is a great place to view a specific college's take of standardized testing and volunteering importance, for instance. And each school has a unique mix of what's important, although "rigor of secondary school record" is almost always ranked as Very Important.....beyond that, some may view standardized tests as very important, some may only consider them (e.g., Davidson).

The CDS is produced annually, and some colleges are more current at displaying their CDS' than others (& some like Harvard & Washington U don't make them public apparently). I have seen many 05-06 CDS' replacing last year's version in the last month or 2.

New to the most recent vintage CDS is a new entry in C7:
"Level of Applicant's Interest"

As this subject is much discussed on CC, I though I would let all know of this development.

Here are a few examples that I've found thus far:
Very Important
Bates

Important
Kenyon

Considered
U Colorado
Bowdoin
Middlebury
Hamilton
Colby
Colorado College

Not Considered
Penn State
Vanderbilt
Williams
Skidmore

In any case, if you are interested, I suggest you peruse the CDS thread linked above if you haven't already done so. New 05-06 CDS' should continue to be posted as the year moves on.

[eulenspiegel]

Stanford, when asked and maybe even when not asked states: Interviews not considered; campus visits not considered; please don't contact us just for the sake of contacting us; if you apply we assume you are interested -- why wouldn't you be interested?

[davann]

There is a mistake in the link you provided. The listing for Brown, abbreviated as BU, is actually BU - Boston University.

[Papa Chicken]

davann-- I believe richs73cas has fixed that in later cumulative summary posts on page 3 of the thread.

[davann]

Papa Chicken - you are right - thanks. I didn't go that far.

[Papa Chicken]

one other change to 05-06 CDS C7 I just noticed.....

CDS' 04-05 & previous have "secondary school record" as the single criterion to cover grades & rigor of course work.

CDS 05-6 has now split that criterion into 2: "rigor of secondary school record" and "academic GPA".

On the few that I've checked, most new CDS' have these 2 new categories as equally important, but the exceptions I noticed included Penn State rating GPA higher, and Colorado College rating Rigor of record higher, so there appear to be some differences with the split.

[carolyn]

Very interesting PapaChicken.

You might also want to take a look at the The National Association of College Admissions Counselors annual survey of college admissions officers about the importance of various elements in the admissions decision. Demonstrated interest has been rising in importance every year, and the NACAC calls it a "tipping factor" at this point - it won't get you in and of itself, but if it comes down to two applicants with similar stats, one who will clearly attend and one who won't, most colleges will favor the first one. If you want to read the NACAC report go to www.nacacnet.com and it is easy to find.

[carolyn]

By the way, there's no need to figure out what has been added - go to the Common Data Set Initiative website and they tell you:
http://www.commondataset.org/ It's also a good site to learn exactly what the CDS is (it is not, as some think, an official government reporting requirement - the government has its own reporting system)

If you're interested in some of the thinking behind the changes, you can click on the CDS discussion at the College Board at the above site. You can read the messages in the discussion between colleges about the in's and out's of preparing their CDS each year, including the changes made this year. It is an eye-opener in terms of making one wonder just how much fuzziness there is in how CDS information is compiled.

[Papa Chicken]

wow, thanks carolyn.....that nacac report (I found it), is a great read on this subject as well as admissions factors in general.

here's the link to chapter 4, factors in the admissions process, which contains discussion on the growing importance of "demonstrated interest":
http://www.nacacnet.org/NR/rdonlyres.../0/ch4_fia.pdf

(btw, the general link is www.nacanet.org, not .com)

a few excerpts:

"When asked directly, only 32 percent of colleges indicated that they consider demonstrated interest a factor in the admission process. However, as colleges ranked a whole array of factors in the admission process, 53 percent assigned some level of importance (considerable, moderate or limited) to a student’s interest in attending the institution."

"Seventy percent of institutions reported that considering demonstrated interest contributes to understanding whether the student will be an appropriate “fit” for the institution. An example of this type of consideration is the hypothetical case of an institution seeking physics majors to strengthen its science department. Individuals who are academically qualified to attend the institution and who show a particular interest in that institution’s physics department would be particularly attractive candidates during the admission process."

"Private colleges, highly selective colleges and colleges with low yield rates appear to be most likely to consider a student’s interest during the admission process."

".......show that being a private institution or a small institution increases the likelihood that the institution will consider demonstrated interest as a factor in the admission process."

At the most selective colleges, the following factors were cited as demonstrating interest, ranked in ascending order:
1. interview
2. campus visit
3. EA or ED
4. academic or professional focus
5. faculty contact
6. admissions office contact

[xiggi]

PapaChicken, two comments:

1. I remember having a lengthy discussion with Carolyn when the NACAC report came out. To this day, I still believe that the evidence used by NACAC is flimsy at best, and that the demonstrated interest is hardly relevant at very selective schools, with maybe a few exceptions. It is worth remembering that the NACAC does not exactly represents ALL the views of COLLEGE admissions professionals. A large source of their information comes from high school counselors, and that says it all!

2. It would be most beneficial to add the "vintage year" when posting CDS links.

[xiggi]

This what I posted ... then :

"Not a great surprise! Before spending too much time dissecting the findings of the NACAC reports, someone ought to see who fills the surveys and check the "qualifications" of the members of NACAC.

How does this information compare with the collective wisdom of the College Confidential forum? Does anyone who has spent time reading about the results of 2003 and 2004 admissions truly believe that showing interest is as important as EC's. Does anyone truly believe that class rank is a mere TIP factor? Does anyone really believe that GC really KNOW what is happening in the college admission world, or at least in the world of selective schools.

This report is yet another proof that the chasm between the knowledge of GC's and the requirements of selective colleges is growing larger by the day.

This report might have some validity for the transition from Bubba High School to Podunk University, but does not seem to offer much help or relevance for the type of schools discussed at College Confidential.

AND

Carolyn, please understand that I do not consider the report to lack value or integrity. My main problem with it is that it lacks relevance to the colleges that are consistently discussed in these forums.

Allow me to add that the report is not solely based on the input of 600 college adcoms but also on the input of 800 high school professionals. It takes a leap of faith to assume that the high school counselors know WHY their students were admitted and WHAT was important, especially among applicants that are evaluated through a holistic process.

Colleges Tell All - NACAC Survey

[Papa Chicken]

points well taken xiggi...I was reading over more of the report, and although there are lots of nice graphs and trend charts, looks like all of the data originate from fairly subjective questionnaires...hadn't gotten to the point yet of finding out who was questioned or how representative that population is relative to the selective colleges most discussed on CC....although in looking at the demonstarted interest tables, I found myself keying in on the sorts by college selectivity for the exact reasons you mentioned, realizing that the dataset as a whole was geared to a much bigger, and different, college world than we talk about here.

perhaps the biggest take-away for me at least is that there appears to be a growing trend for this factor, irregardless of its relative tip weight....just interesting to me.

good idea on the CDS reporting.

[eulenspiegel]

"ranked in ascending order:
1. interview
2. campus visit
3. EA or ED
4. academic or professional focus
5. faculty contact
6. admissions office contact"

Are you sure you meant ascending order?

[xiggi]

PapaC, please note that I remember this because I happen to disagree with Carolyn on this. My position also illustrates my well-known bias when it comes to the efficiency of HS GCs.

I tend to agree with Mrs. Carolyn's other 15,000 CC posts.

[Papa Chicken]

I wrote ascending, but I meant descending; thanks for clarifying...that is, interviews were attributed the highest percentage response, and therefore ranked first, of those listed by admission officers.