About 30 percent of freshmen at the least selective plan to transfer to another institution before completing their degree, according to the ,” is based on a survey of 153,015 first-year students at 227 four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. who began their studies last fall.
In addition to gauging transfer intentions, the survey also asked which factors were “very important” in influencing a student’s decision to attend a particular school. The students who responded evaluated 23 possible reasons.
This year, 18 percent of students surveyed cited college rankings as an important factor, up slightly from 17.6 percent last year. Rankings remained in 12th place on the list in the latest edition of the survey, suggesting that students are consulting them, but that rankings are not the most powerful force in the college search process.
Students said the biggest factor influencing their choice to attend a particular institution was its stellar academic reputation. Academic reputation is also used as a key factor in the U.S. 海角社区app . Undergraduate academic reputation has a weight of 22.5 percent in all our Best Colleges , making it one of the most heavily weighted ranking variables.
According to the UCLA study, another important trend is a rise in the importance of early decision programs as a reason for choosing a college. Since these programs were first included on the survey, the percentage of students citing them as “very important” has doubled. In 1999, 6.9 percent of first-time, full-time students said being admitted through an early action or early decision program was “very important” in picking their current institution. That figure rose to 15.7 percent in 2014.
Early admission programs are especially important for students attending the most selective universities. More than one-quarter of students at private, highly selective schools said early admissions was a “very important” factor in their college decision, compared with 12.6 percent of students at the least selective private institutions.
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