<p>Out of curiosity, do the above numbers represent the percent of students who graduate after four years of schooling, or the percent who graduate within four years of matriculation? In other words, if a student takes a semester/year off of school (so graduates in 4 1/2-5 years, but still after only 8 semesters of coursework), is (s)he included as a 4-year grad, or no? </p>
<p>Similarly, do the numbers represent the percentage of 4-year grads among all matriculated students, or of all grads? In other words, if 100 students matriculate, 10 transfer or drop out somewhere within the span of 4 years, and the other 90 graduate on time, is the school listed as having a 90% or a 100% graduation rate?</p>
<p>The reason I ask is because the above numbers definitely don’t seem to tell the whole story, though they are interesting. I go to a school listed above at 81%, but I don’t know a single person (let alone any 19%) who has wanted to graduate in 4 years and, unique circumstances (i.e. time off) aside, not been able to. I know a fair number who have taken longer than 4 years from the time of matriculation, but it certainly hasn’t been due to inability to register, academic failure, etc., and it hasn’t required extra semesters of tuition. There’s just so much at play, here. It’d be so convenient if colleges could quantify “Students who try to graduate in four years” vs. “Students who actually do” (and maybe a little ranking for “How easy it was”) :)</p>
<p>(To the OP: If you don’t happen to know the answers to my questions, it’s not a problem…I just wanted to point out that the numbers above may be misleading to prospective students who definitely want to graduate in 4 years.)</p>