Good point.
In general, there is a lot of potential value in highly standardized repeat data reporting like the CDS, but informing people about unusual, nuanced issues is typically not one of the virtues of such a program. Over time the CDS has been modified to better address some common issues, but it doesn’t answer every important question one might ask, and that is fine.
Colby has programs where first-year students spend their first semester in Dijon or Salamanca. I think this is a pretty recent development. (I don’t remember hearing about it when my C20 applied and was admitted.) I’m not sure if, like Hamilton’s January start, some students are offered admission to the program without indicating interest on their application.
https://life.colby.edu/offcampus/global-entry-semesters/
It’s not new at Colby. It’d been in place before my kid went (2016).
But they are Colby programs so I think those kids are technically enrolled at Colby, so get reported as Colby students.
And you’re right, some students are surprised by this offer!
Thanks for the correction. My D was admitted RD for fall on campus, so I didn’t realize this was an option at the time. Since it was March 2020, on-campus admitted student days were canceled. I was sorry that we didn’t get to revisit since my D wasn’t sure about fit when we had toured during her junior year. And I never got to visit Colby’s fantastic museum 
Are we clear that it is the case that the admissions data for these “non-Fall” admits are not included in the schools overall admissions numbers? If that is the case, and I think that it is, I hold that the schools should report consolidated data. Let’s say it is a vehicle for lower stats kids. It’s entirely admirable, in my opinion, for a school to take a chance on some lower stats kids who show something else that makes the ad com want to admit them. But they should be transparent about it. I’m not saying that Hamilton or Colby use the off-cycle admission practice as such a tool, so please don’t blow me up over the example. Though I should also add that a personal friend serves on the ad com of an Ivy and her take, when I asked her about it, is that such practices are frequently used at least in part for that very purpose, even though there are other reasons relating to housing logistics and the like.
As for the intended audience(s) of the CDS reports, it appears that prospective applicants (and their families and counselors) overwhelmingly do use and rely on them, and I trust every ad com in the country knows that. If you’re going to bother filling it out, then fill it out and do the best you can to convey relevant information for applicants to consider.
Why? If every school which employed such a practice either reported those numbers or at least included them in the consolidation, then it would be that much more information available to the consuming public. What if it isn’t nuanced or unusual? What if there is an actual profile to, say, the Hamilton January admit? What if some kid who fits that profile and really likes Hamilton had access to it? Why isn’t that a virtue? Or even if it is nuanced, isn’t it helpful for people do know that a school admits part of the class through this other process that is more “nuanced” in its workings?
That information could indeed be useful to potential Hamilton applicants. But I think the best way to convey that information would be on Hamilton’s website, where they could provide a full, tailored explanation of the information they were providing.
The “Common Data Set” is by design about providing “clear, standard data items and definitions”:
If you start trying to put data about non-standard admissions into that format, it is going to undermine that specific goal. But again, that doesn’t mean the college should not report that information anywhere, it just means (I think) the Common Data Set is the wrong place to try to report it.
Middlebury does that here:
The Wesleyan example I referred to upstream illustrates how even the best intended website granule can lead to confusion among the cognoscenti.
Maybe the problem is the format. How hard would it be to provide the same information provided for the ‘regular’ admitted class into another data field? Call it whatever you wish.
Or, just ignore whether a student is starting in August/September or Jan/Feb and report consolidated numbers. I mean, how terribly important can information about starting dates be?
Is it an “option”? Or is it the offer of admission, with no alternative offer of admission? If the student says ‘I don’t like January,’ does the student have the option to attend in the fall? I was under the impression that it was the only choice.
You are right… If you are offered spring, you generally cannot choose a fall start.
But at many schools, they will ask on the application if you would be willing to start in spring. There’s someone on CC now actively looking for that option. It’s not always a surprise or unwelcome.
There are, no doubt, kids who don’t say they would be okay with spring and are still offered it.
Report to ??? The government asks for specific stats for the CDS. USNWR asks for specific data. It’s the fall statistics. If some schools report spring starts but others don’t, the stats become meaningless.
Northeastern played this game to rise in the USNWR rankings. It did defer some students to January starts (or to start abroad in the fall) to avoid reporting their statistics.
The CDS data provides a good portion of the answers for the USNWR questionnaire. I think @cquin85 is suggesting that if the government changes what it is asking for, the other subscribers will fall in line.
We need a CDS refresher. First off…not required, not required to be accurate…no one is checking.
The CDS initiative is a collaboration between CollegeBoard, USNWR, and Peterson’s. There is a lot of overlap with fed government required data by design.
Maybe if the govt started requiring full year admissions stats (incl spring) CDS would change. But then again…lots of schools don’t fill out many CDS fields, some don’t even complete one at all.
My bad. I think a lot of people (myself included) conflate the CDS with IPEDS.
To all stake holders. And from CDS itself, that seems like it’s more than just the government, if it’s even the government at all:
That’s my point. Encourage all who admit other than fall semester/quarter to provide that data. Give them a field for it. It’s not just the colleges mentioned in this thread. The Univ. of Washington did, and I believe still does, admit people for winter and spring quarters. Is there a profile for this cohort? How does it compare to fall admits? We don’t know. Why don’t we know? Yes, that’s why. Even if every school doesn’t engage in the practice, reporting would allow us to see clearly which do, and among those how their fall cohorts compare to the non-fall cohorts. More data is better than less, right? What am I missing here?
So, wouldn’t having the field available and encouraging more fulsome reporting of admission data for all students have made it harder for them to play that game? I’m a bit confounded with where you’re going here.
To put a positive spin on this, since the tone became a little negative and accusatory, imagine a kid whose life-long dream is to attend a college that has these spring admit windows. Imagine that kid is close, but doesn’t quite measure up, to the stats of the fall class profile. What if that kid knew there was another group which presented lower 50th and 75th percentile markers than does the fall class? Maybe that kid would find that information valuable in making a decision whether to put in the effort and $ to apply.
The CC population whines and complains about the “black box” of holistic admissions and the mystery of athletic take-up of ED slots and what about tuba players and on and on and on, all in the name of greater transparency for prospectives. And here is a whole other track of admissions at several (many?) colleges and universities and we want to leave it alone? Why? It can be as standardized as fall admissions. Just give it another name and box.
IMO it’s because colleges are not inclined to be transparent with their data.
Many schools do highlight these programs on their websites and in live/virtual admissions sessions. But I don’t know many (maybe any?) that break out the stats. Who knows what a potential applicant might find out if they asked though.
Colby has been running those programs for over 30 years. They aren’t new. I’m not sure how they did it in the old days, but this year you had to express interest on your application.
I don’t think most of the schools have different standards for the spring admits. A student can ask for that, like the UF applicants can ask for Summer B, Fall, or spring, but that doesn’t mean that that the standards are different or even that the school will honor that request. The schools SAY they are doing it for a student who may have something to do in the fall and can’t start, but don’t want to wait a year, to fill dorm space in the winter, or other such reasons. I think Northeaster saw a way to use it to manipulate the figures (and it worked) but that didn’t mean the acceptance standards were lower. I think the figures they were balancing were more yield numbers. Some schools up their number of applications by waiving the fee.
If you want to go to Middlebury, are you really not going to apply because you are in the 73% group and not the 75%? The overall percentage isn’t going to move that much (I don’t think the spring admit groups are 25% of the class but a much smaller percentage).
The schools are saying the standards are not different. We either believe them or we don’t. It really made no difference to me or my kids. We weren’t slicing the bologna that thin.
Sorry to switch gears off the CDS topic, but I wanted to share my S24’s excitement about attending Monday’s Bowdoin admitted student day. After sitting in on a psychology class, he said “Dad… everyone is here to learn…not like our (rural) school at all.” He was so thrilled. Loved it.
With all due respect, the consuming public is less interested in what you think is the case, and more interested in what is the case. I’m sure you’re right, but then what’s the problem? Show the data.
Different topic. The point of this topic is students who are offered admission to start other than in the fall. And are offered only that option.
Again, different topic. Consider the example of UW admits starting spring quarter. There, it was “take it or leave it.” Nobody was asking about preferences or other plans for the fall.
Again, a lot of supposing on your part. I know an Ivy League admissions officer who acknowledges the practice has been, and she thinks still is, used to move lower stats admits. Nobody, not even she, ever said it was the only point of the practice, or that every school who does it is doing so at all. But this is a competitive business, and presidents watch their admission % and 50th/75th percentile numbers. Closely. Again, we don’t really need to wonder about any of this. Just share the data.
“The schools”? As in, every school that admits part of its class later in the academic year? Again, I’d rather not take your word for it and just see the data. It’s fine if you and your kids didn’t care. Others might be interested. Why are we working so hard on this issue? It so cuts against the CC grain to insist on not seeing relevant data. I mean, if the spring term stats are in line with the fall admits, then you know at that particular school it’s about logistics. But you yourself said NEastern did it to pump their numbers. And then you said they didn’t, so I’m confused. My source tells me it’s a practice schools have engaged in for that purpose.
