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Article Type

Professional Proficiency

Article Abstract

Related Issue:

College admission typically requires students to present their high school GPA and a standardized score, such as ACT or SAT. High school GPA is usually attributed to students’ cumulative effort during their high school career and is often used as a measure of resilience. The ACT score allows students’ aptitude to be assessed. Contemporary admission practices, however, often rely on a combination of scores that allow ranking a potential student and viewing them as a high- or low-potential based on a single number. While such practice is efficient for making quick admission decisions, it is detrimental for identifying students’ particular needs while in college. Such students with academic challenges may require help understanding the subject matter, while students who lack essential study- or time-management skills may require assistance emphasizing the behavioral component of being in college. Lack of a simple way to estimate potential challenges within the populations comprising the student body often results in treating the population that doesn’t necessarily need help and overlooking the segments that may require extra or a different type of attention. To quickly understand the differences in student population, a tool was developed that parcels an incoming cohort into four achievement quadrants: low achiever, high achiever, overachiever, and underachiever. This study explores the usability of this tool in determining at-risk population, and understanding behavioral differences and reported academic needs for intervention design.

Author(s)

Ekaterina (Kate) Ralston is the Assistant Director for Research in Admissions at Iowa State University. Kate provides analytic support to the Office of Admissions as well as contributing to the projects conducted by the Enrollment Research Team. Kate has a doctoral degree in sociology, a master’s in mass communications from Iowa State University, and a bachelor’s in newspaper journalism from Moscow State University, Russia. Her areas of interest include multi-method approaches to data, focusing on quantitative techniques, such as structural equation modeling, longitudinal studies, and interaction analysis.

Jonathan Compton is a senior research analyst in the Office of the Registrar at Iowa State University and is a member of the Enrollment Research Team. In this role, he is responsible for creation of reports, enrollment and course projections, and analysis of data in support of student success initiatives at the university. He has been in his current role for 7 years. He holds a PhD in educational leadership and policy studies from Iowa State University, a master’s degree in teaching English as a second language from Iowa State University, and a bachelor’s degree in English from Bryan College.

Greg Forbes is the research analyst for the Office of Student Financial Aid at Iowa State University. He provides data, assessment, and research support for financial aid and is a member of the Iowa State University Enrollment Research Team. Greg has 18 years of experience in financial aid serving in a variety of functions including counseling, policy support, and research. He has particular interest in the intersections of financial aid and student success, enrollment management, and student loan debt. Greg received a Master of Public Administration with a focus in higher education from Iowa State University and a bachelor of science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Xiaowei Xu is a Ph.D. candidate in hospitality management at Iowa State University. She currently works as a research assistant for the Enrollment Research Team. Her research focuses on information technology and consumer behavior in tourism. Her methodological areas of interest include latent variable modeling and analysis of individual differences in longitudinal data.

Jason Pontius is the Director of Institutional Research at the Iowa Board of Regents. He is responsible for data reporting and analytics for Iowa’s public university system and liaisons with multiple state agencies for the purposes of longitudinal data sharing. Jason holds a Ph.D. in education policy from Iowa State University, a master’s in higher education administration from Indiana University, and a bachelor’s in psychology from the University of Virginia.

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