January 17, 2005 1:55pm
Re: Required Course for Late Registrants?

Barbara (and colleagues):
Many years ago, somewhere, I heard a story (probably apocryphal) about a university research team that attempted to run a multivariate statistical analysis of EVERY data field in their entire student database, to see what correlations there were to retention, graduation rates, grade point averages, etc They thought, perhaps they could predict by age, gender, race, GPA, ACT, high school, etc. etc?? Perhaps there were interaction
effects?? They had no hypothesis; just wanted to see what happened. As it turned out, the data field that most correlated with retention/attrition was STUDENT I.D. NUMBER. They were stunned, and scratched their heads, and thought perhaps their results were random, until they realized that student I.D. numbers were assigned in chronological order of application. (I know: the data field "Application date" would have yielded the same results, but this is apocryphal research, so you have to suspend judgment). (If anyone can identify the source of this story, I would appreciate it).

Anyway, what hypotheses could we develop and test that would explain these results?
1. Students who register late are lazy, unmotivated, and don't really want to be in college?
2. Students who register late are poor planners, so will do more poorly in college?
3. Students who register late received poor pre-college advice and counseling from high schools and/or parents?
4. Students who register late have a very poor choice of classes (including but not limited to your Freshman Seminar), so they did not get the schedules or subjects they needed to keep them in college?
5. Students who register late have less time to solve the normal problems that are discovered at orientation: financial aid, housing, tuition payments, etc.?, so those problems remain to plague them?
6. Students who register late had their paper work (transcripts, applications, etc) screwed up by their high school or our college, and are victims of bureaucratic mistakes?

I haven't seen any validation of any of these hypotheses, and would be interested in hearing others' ideas about what might explain this phenomenon.

In any case, here are some suggestions:
a. Make your orientations for late registrants smaller and longer, so they get the time they need to solve their problems.
b. save some seats in regular sections of your FS for the late comers.
c. stop accepting late registrants (impossible: no matter the deadline, someone has to be last!)
d. fuggidaboutit

Anyone else have suggestions?

Joel Nossoff
University of New Mexico
jnossoff@unm.edu

January 17, 2005 2:13pm
Re: Required Course for Late Registrants?

Joel,

Wow, you bring up some extremely interesting points. Thank you!!

Perhaps also the possibility that students who register late are trying to secure a place within the school should they fail to be accepted at their "first-choice." If they are accepted, they withdraw from their "back-up" schools, thus leaving an appearance that these schools failed to accommodate these students in some way, when in reality they did not intend to attend at all.

Just a thought

~Martie Watson
Activity 1 Coordinator
Title V Cooperative
Eastern New Mexico University
(505) 562-2389
martie.watson@enmu.edu

January 18, 2005 3:50am
Re: Required Course for Late Registrants?

Barbara, Joel, (and others who may be interested):

Barbaba, first, regarding your question about whether institutions offer first-year seminars for "different populations of first-year students to enroll in different seminar courses based on reasons other than purely academic." The answer is a resounding yes. According to national surveys conducted by the National Resource Center in South Carolina, institutions have created and delivered special seminar sections for an incredibly wide variety of student subpopulations, which include: undecided (undeclared)
students, students with the same major, provisionally (conditionally) admitted students, at-risk students, students on academic probation or eligible for academic dismissal after their first term in college, honors and scholarship students, minority students, commuter students, international students, students with disabilities, female students, single mothers, single mothers on welfare, ROTC students, and incarcerated students.
Barbara, in response to your other question, about first-year seminar models in which peers teach the course, there are two institutions I have read about that have used specially trained upper-division students to serve as course instructors on their own--not as part of a faculty/staff teaching team--are Oregon State University and Lynchburg College (VA). Perhaps a quick look at these institutions' websites may provide you with a contact.

Joel, I don't know the origin of the apparently apocryphal account of the university research team that ran a multivariate statistical analysis of EVERY data field in their entire student database, only to find that the variable most correlated with retention/attrition was STUDENT I.D. NUMBER, which left them initially dumbfounded, only to realize later that student I.D. numbers were assigned in chronological order of application. However, to complicate matters, I can add an old attrition aphorism to the mix that I've heard before, namely: "Last to come, first to go." I've never found any firm support for that saying. In fact, among the many instruments designed to predict students that may be "at risk" for attrition, I never seem to find "date of matriculation" included among the questions asked.

However, having just read Barbara's account of how late-admitted students exhibit higher attrition risks at her institution, plus your allegedly apocryphal story, and my attrition aphorism, I wonder if this coincidental convergence suggests that this may a bona fide phenomenon, which warrants more systematic empirical investigation than it seems to have received.

Barbara, I hope this helps; Joel, I know I haven't helped.

Joe Cuseo
Loyola Marymount College

January 18, 2005 11:11am
Re: Required Course for Late Registrants?

Hi,

Another factor for late registrants is the quality of Housing they obtain. They are usually the ones relegated to over-flow housing in residence hall lounges and hotels. They can never settle in and feel at home because at any time they can get a notice that they have to move (as vacancies occur in regular housing). The living conditions of being in a lounge are less than ideal. They may begin to bond with floor members and the community and then part way through the semester have to start over with a new roommate and a new floor -- maybe even a new building.

I can't point to the source right now, but somewhere along the line I remember hearing that there is a higher retention rate for students living in on-campus housing than those who live off-campus. Late registrants who can't get into on-campus housing would then be facing the off-campus living factor.

Susan Darge
Residence Hall Area Director
University of Minnesota Duluth
513 Niagara Court, 189 Lake Superior Hall
Duluth, Minnesota 55812
(218) 726-6852

January 18, 2005 11:21am
Re: Required Course for Late Registrants?

Interesting discussion. My dissertation research will examine this phenomenon regarding matriculation date, orientation date, 1st choice of college, taking freshmen seminar, living on campus among other variables with the entering 05-06 cohort of freshmen at the College of Charleston.
Any recommendations or comments on this topic will be appreciated!

Have a great day all!
-Mindy
Melinda Miley, M.Ed.
Assistant Dean
College of Charleston, Office of New Student Programs
843-953-2017
843-953-5800 (fax)

January 18, 2005 11:31am
Re: Required Course for Late Registrants?

This is a very good point, Susan. Actually, many fewer of these students live in the residence halls (only a small percentage of our students do live in housing....most are commuter). And we notice a significant difference in retention between housing and non-housing students.
Unfortunately, we don't have the capacity to offer more students housing so we are looking for other options.

Thanks, Susan.

Barbara Gaddis, Director
Science Learning Center
Univ. of Colorado at Colorado Springs
P. O. Box 7150
Colorado Springs, CO 80933-7150

January 18, 2005 11:45am
Re: Required Course for Late Registrants?

Greetings,

I know this is an FYS list-serve, but on a tangential issue:

There are some studies indicating that retention of students who live on campus is higher than retention of students who live off campus. I've not read very far into the literature yet, but I'm--very slowly--working on it for the sake of the retention committee here.

Can anyone route me to some "definitive" studies on this residency-retention issue? So far, I've not found satisfactory answers to the following questions:

1) Do on-campus students persist better than off-campus students at very small colleges (1000 students or less)?
2) Do the retention studies apply to all classes, or primarily to freshmen and sophomores?

Regarding an issue central to FYS programs, does anyone know of a study or of studies that answer the following question: Do FYS programs improve retention of freshmen when participation is MANDATORY, or only when VOLUNTARY?

Thank you,
KH

January 18, 2005 2:07pm
Re: Required Course for Late Registrants?

Hello, all. I'm guessing that Mindy and others will be able to fairly easily find literature that supports the notion that living on-campus is a positive predictor for retention and that students that live off-campus are less likely to 'succeed'.

Once I began working in commuter student affairs, I began to look more closely at these studies. I found myself asking: Do they differentiate between students who live off-campus because they want to versus those who live off-campus because there is not any on-campus space available? Do they differentiate between students who are living at home with family versus those who may be living in an apartment on their own or with friends? Do they examine how many hours per week the students are working, and whether those jobs are on- or off-campus?

Perhaps of most interest to me lately is the question of whether the studies looked at institutional barriers that may be in place (unintentionally, of course) for students that do not live on campus. I always find it interesting that when students succeed, we attribute it to the strength of campus services (like residence halls, learning communities, FYE courses, etc.), but if/when they do not succeed, we attribute it to something they
individually did wrong (not studying enough, choosing to live off-campus, spending too much time working).

You may find, as I have on a more individual level, that living off-campus is a less important factor in student retention than many other factors: inadequate financial resources, first-generation college experience, amount of time one has to commit to off-campus communities (family, work, etc.), campus climate, etc.

At our institution, the students that I would consider to be most marginalized (students of color, first generation students, transfer students, students with children, students from lower income backgrounds) are also more likely to commute than to live on campus. I think this trend is found at a national level, too. And, the retention data here does
indicate a slightly lower retention rate for off-campus students.

However, we frequently debate whether that rate is simply related to their living off-campus (and our assumptions about what that means) or larger issues like our campus climate for 'non-traditional' students. If folks have good resources that get at these issues, please do share.
Best wishes - Tori

Victoria Svoboda
Associate Dean of Students
University of St. Thomas
2115 Summit Ave. Mail #5041
LL017 Murray-Herrick Campus Center
St. Paul, MN 55105
Tel: (651) 962-6052
Fax: (651) 962-6655
E-mail: vasvoboda@stthomas.edu

Commuter Center & Off Campus Services:
http://www.stthomas.edu/commutercenter
Student Orientation: http://www.stthomas.edu/studentorientation
Family Weekend: http://www.stthomas.edu/parentresource/familyweekend

January 18, 2005 2:31pm
Re: Required Course for Late Registrants?

I am not sure if the following information may be helpful or not...

I can tell you that we measured the retention rate (to on campus housing) of our FYE program. We had approximately 120 students who take a FYE course and live together in the same residence hall. We then checked the following year to see who was living on campus. We compared those numbers to a control group (control group was matched for gender and pre college characteristics-SAT/ACT, GPA, major). We found a statistical significance to our FYE students returning to on campus housing (for their second year) compared against the lower return rate for the control group.

We did measure retention to the university but found no statistically significant difference between the FYE group and the control group. This may be due to the fact that Virginia Tech has a fairly high retention rate from first to second year.

Best Regards,
James Penven
Associate Director of Residence Life
Virginia Tech

January 18, 2005 2:31pm
Re: Required Course for Late Registrants?

A colleague pointed me to one of the sources I was thinking of regarding retention and on-campus living. It is Pascarrelli and Terrenzini.

Susan Darge
Residence Hall Area Director
University of Minnesota Duluth
513 Niagara Court, 189 Lake Superior Hall
Duluth, Minnesota 55812
(218) 726-6852