One of the intended consequences of test-optional admission policies at some institutions prior to the COVID-19 pandemic was to raise test scores reported to US News and World Report. It's rare that you would see a proponent of test-optional admission like me admit that, but to deny it would be foolish. Because I worked at DePaul, which was an early adopter of the approach (at least among large universities), I fielded a lot of calls from colleagues who were considering it, some of whom were explicit in their reasons for doing so. One person I spoke to came right out at the start of the call: She was only calling, she said, because her provost wanted to know how much they could raise scores if they went test-optional. If I sensed or heard that motivation, I advised people against it. In those days, the vast majority of students took standardized admission tests like the SAT or ACT, but the percentage of students applying without tests was still relatively small; the needle would
I know I've been barking up the tree of " Graduation Rates are inputs, not outputs " for a long time. And I know no one is listening. So I do this, just to show you (without the dependent variable) just how unsurprising they are. Here are four views of graduation rates at America's four-year public and private, not-for-profit colleges and universities. And I've put them in four views, with several different ways to look at the data. The first (using the tabs across the top) shows four-, five-, and six-year graduation rates on the left, and "Chance in four" on the right. In other words, since everyone pretty much thinks they're going to graduate from the college they enroll in as a freshman, what are the chances of graduating in four years, rather than six? There are some surprises there, as you'll see. On all the visualizations, you can apply filters to limit the colleges you're looking at. The scroll bar (to move up or down) is on the r