It does not really matter how you get to and through an airport; as long as you buy a ticket, clear security, and make it to the gate on time, you pretty much are assured of a spot on a plane. The process of enrolling at a four-year college is similar, a new study suggests, in that the completion of a few key steps can make all the difference in determining whether a student gets a seat in an entering class or is left behind.
Specifically, there are five crucial steps to getting ready for a four-year college that have been completed by about 95 percent of the students who enroll in such institutions in a timely manner and that have been partly skipped by just 5 percent of those who manage to enroll soon after high school, according to an analysis of federal data presented here on Saturday at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association.
The necessity of two of the steps—attaining minimal college qualifications and actually applying to a college—is obvious. But many educators might not be aware that students who fail to take the SAT or ACT test and who lack bachelor’s degree aspirations at two key junctures—in both 10th and 12th grades—will find the odds of attending a four-year college soon after their graduation from high school stacked heavily against them.
“Missing any one of these crucial steps can be a big problem for students,” said the study’s author, Daniel Klasik, a doctoral student in education at Stanford University who works at Stanford’s Institute for Research on Educational Policy and Practice.
The good news, Mr. Klasik said in an interview, is that completing all five steps is such a strong predictor of college enrollment that it can help offset the effects of socioeconomic disadvantage. By focusing on getting students through what a paper summarizing his findings describes as a five-step “college application gauntlet,” high schools, colleges, and public-policy makers can help ensure that many more students will have access to a four-year college education.
The Importance of Staying on Schedule
As things currently stand, the paper notes, at least four out of five students either entertain the possibility of attending a four-year college, take the SAT or ACT, or attain minimal academic qualifications for college, but just two out of five end up enrolling in a four-year institution soon after their graduation from high school.
Mr. Klasik based his study on data from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002, a nationally representative federal survey that tracked students who were in 10th grade in 2002 through college and into the work force. His analysis took into account students’ socioeconomic and ethnic background and how much their completion of one step of the process of getting ready for college had influenced their prospects of completing other steps down the road.
A key insight driving Mr. Klasik’s analysis was the idea that the decision to attend a four-year college is not one students make once, but one they need to make several times. Another belief, which he described as validated by his analysis, is that students need to stick to a fairly rigid timetable in doing what is necessary to enroll in a four-year college. The importance of their staying on schedule, he said, “is not given enough attention” by people in the field.
His analysis found that students’ completion of some steps—such as taking the SAT or ACT or filling out college applications—appeared to be strongly positively correlated with their completion of other steps down the road. That said, the sorting process his paper describes is somewhat inefficient, more closely resembling a slalom course in which skiers keep at it after missing do-or-die turns than a spelling bee in which failing to get through Round 1 precludes participation in Round 2.
He found, for example, that 11 percent of the students in his data set who had applied to a four-year college had not earned the minimum qualifications. Among the students who took college entrance exams, 12 percent had not expressed a desire to attend college before.
Among other college-preparatory steps that Mr. Klasik examined, meeting with college counselor or college representative was not absolutely essential, but did appear to substantially increase a students’ chances of both completing other steps and eventually enrolling in a four-year institution.
After taking differences in family income and other student characteristics into account, his analysis found that applying for financial aid appeared to increase a student’s chances of attending any four-year college, while reducing a student’s chances of attending a college that was highly selective.
