Out Here in Oregon

Counselors--especially in Oregon, but anywhere--we'd like your take on this and what it means for Oregon State University and testing going forward. On March 25, 2020 all the public universities in Oregon announced that they were permanently test optional for undergraduate admission .  This was something that was several months in the making, and almost certainly would have gone forward anyway; but the decision was made easier in light of COVID-19.  It was meaningful for me, too, as it happened on the birthday of Norman Borlaug , fellow Iowan and the person once called "the greatest human being who ever lived."  He became the face of test optional when I learned he failed his admission exam to the University of Minnesota. I want to share a few glimpses into the application patterns for our first year students at Oregon State since then. The view below shows all applicants . At top left, you can see counts of students who applied without tests (in orange) for 2021, 2022, a

As we emerge from the pandemic (at least it seems we have; others are not so sure), patterns of enrollment in the state of Oregon are emerging.  And, in general, they seem to be something we residents of the state might want to address collectively.  The causes are complex, of course, and exacerbated by COVID; on the other hand, they have been a long time in coming, akin to Senge's boiling frog analogy. See for yourself.  The view below includes odd-numbered years of enrollment in Oregon, via three views: Four-year publics; community colleges (the largest individually and the smallest rolled into one); and the state's largest four-year private colleges and universities. You can use the filters to choose student level (graduate or undergraduate); status (full- or part-time), gender, and ethnicity, in any combination.  You can see both raw numbers and percentage change since 2011. Before you do that, however, you might want to spend some time with a few resources:  The SHEF site

 We're all fascinated by enrollment numbers.  Each fall, publications across the nation report on local, regional, and national trends.  The numbers are usually top-line, with little context or explanation of what they mean.  And they usually show a snapshot of one-year's change (enrollment went up by 2.3%, or enrollment fell by 1.7%). Enrollment analysis, of course, is complex.  It includes headcounts and types (graduate, undergraduate, full-time, part-time) and it includes other important variables (like revenue or diversity).  And how you measure that success is always changing, and your success is always dependent on the latest definition of that term. But granular measures are not always available, and if they are, there is no guarantee that people are counting things the same way.  So we're left, for now, with numbers.  Just raw numbers.  Sometimes, of course they're interesting all by themselves. This post deals with enrollment in Oregon, and includes all institu

 Just this morning, The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce released the results of a pretty impressive effort: Trying to determine the ROI (return on investment) of post-secondary education at a specific institution. In a world where we clamor for clarity and certainty, this might sound like good news: Finally, parents and students can tell whether one college is worth more than another.  Right? Well, not really.  But sort of.  In general, the overall trends are not surprising: Four-year degrees are worth more than two-year degrees, at least among the Oregon institutions I've displayed below.  And, as many people have been saying for a long time, liberal arts degrees are worth a lot in the long-run, but less valuable in the short-run.  But of course beyond general trends, precision in a project this complicated becomes, well, complicated.  So even though my institution, Oregon State, looks pretty good here, there are many reasons why you might not want to

To say this has been an odd year in college admissions would be an understatement.  The complexity and the uncertainty and the pressures of the season are all part of what we signed up for as part of the job, of course.  While the profession can be a roller-coaster, it's also a lot of fun and quite gratifying. I'm now in the 38th year of doing this, and I wouldn't change it for the world. But with the upheaval of the pandemic comes great uncertainty.  Colgate applications went up 102%. Harvard reported being up 42%.  Campuses in the University of Florida system are down by as much as 50%.  What does it all mean?  It means trying to figure out how fall will look is harder than it's ever been. (Edit: I've been sent this update suggesting University of Florida is actually up a bit in applications. I had done a news search but did not find it originally). In order to know how many students to admit, we have to figure out what percentage of those admitted will enrol