<p>I’m the Mom of a HS junior starting her search for the perfect college. I’m also a researcher at a large U. I’m trying hard to have my daughter evaluate college options without being too swayed by various rankings and the lure of “hot” colleges.</p>
<p>For myself, I’ve decided that my favorite easily available metric is retention, i.e., what percentage of freshmen stay on that campus for their sophomore year. So many factors related to the students’ satisfaction and academic success feed into that one metric. If the retention is below 90%, that raises a red flag for me.</p>
<p>Would anyone like to propose and defend a different option for most valuable metric?</p>
<p>The problem with using retention as the sole most valuable metric is that along with being influenced by “students’ satisfaction and academic success”, it is highly affected by the SES of the students attending. Your red flag will wave for any public institution because those kids drop out or take a leave due to inability to pay at a higher rate than at the 90% retention schools where parents are generally richer and more often footing the bill, and where endowments tend to be much higher per capita. </p>
<p>Being swayed by a single metric seems to me to be just as short sighted as by rankings. For a question as multifaceted as college selection, a multivariate analysis seems more appropriate than a simple regression.</p>
<p>One more comment, if possible, squelch your Ds search for the “perfect college” ASAP. It is more likely to lead to dissapointment than happiness, for most students there are many schools that can fulfill their needs.</p>
<p>Points well taken! I never meant to imply that this is the one metric that does it all - just the metric that I personally find most compelling of all the factors generally listed in college summaries. Of course it’s ridiculous to consider just one factor. </p>
<p>As for the SES factor, you’re quite right. I am the product of a large public U as well as the employee of one. I was thinking in terms of my D, who is looking strictly at small, liberal arts colleges. I’m adequately chastised.</p>
<p>Ah ha, I think the title of the thread threw me off, I understand now! I agree that metrics do help in the initial cut of getting together a group of schools that seem to fit the needs of the student. Best of luck to you and your D!</p>
<p>I think retention is the third best metric. Many student survive a year of basic courses and then can’t handle the upper level courses. They may squeak by the first year but drop out later.</p>
<p>So, I think graduation rate is the best measure. After that, SAT scores, which are highly correlated with graduation and academic performance.</p>