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UH Hilo Congress Admissions Committee 2007-2008: our goal is student success

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The primary mission of UH Hilo is to offer high quality undergraduate liberal arts and professional programs. (UH Hilo Mission Statement, as stated in AY 2007-2008 catalog and Strategic Plan 2002-2010).

Introduction

This is the report of the Admissions Committee to the Faculty Congress for AY 2007-2008. According to the Congress charter,

The Congress will appoint a standing admissions committee composed of at least one faculty representative from each college that awards undergraduate degrees and one faculty representative from Student Affairs. The Congress will also appoint a faculty member to serve as chair of this committee. The committee will be charged with

* reviewing and recommending general admission standards for UH Hilo undergraduates. These standards will address first-time new students, transfer students, home schooled students, dismissed students, and students who would otherwise be denied admission but have exceptional skills and talents of interest to the university. While the committee makes recommendations for general admission standards, it will not infringe on the prerogative of individual colleges to 1) establish higher admission standards for students enrolling in its courses or programs, and 2) establish admission opportunity programs for students that would not otherwise meet the university’s general admission standards

* making periodic assessments of admission standards in light of the mission of the university, the strategic plan, financial considerations, University of Hawai’i system policies, and Board of Regents policies

* making periodic, evidence-based assessments of admission opportunity programs established for students that do not meet the general admission standards. These assessments must also address whether the admission opportunity programs have admission standards, a faculty review process, an on-going academic support structure to assist students, and an evaluation component to monitor effectiveness of the program.

We have identified three interrelated issues pertaining to admissions: Our statewide reputation is poor, our retention and graduation rates are low, and our faculty are frustrated with the preparation level of our students.

1) The reputation of UH Hilo is poor outside of East Hawaii. “I believe, and we've always believed, that we're five steps behind," said nationally acclaimed author Lois-Ann Yamanaka. "It's the 'You're only good [enough] to be on this rock' mentality. It's ingrained. And when your neighbor's kid goes to Stanford and you had to stay in Hilo College -- I mean, heaven forbid! To me it's sad because I felt that way."(Leong, 1999).

UH Hilo should be an attractive option for top Hawaii high school graduates. We have outstanding, unique programs in Hawaiian Studies, Volcanology, and Marine Science. Our Nursing program has national accreditation, and our College of Business and Economics is one of only two AACSB-accredited colleges of business in the state. Our Computer Science graduates’ field exam scores are on par with the top schools in the nation.

However, NSSE results indicate that students themselves feel underchallenged [ref], and a 2007 survey of faculty members reveal that in the view of teaching faculty, many students lack basic skills such as writing.

A study of Oahu high school counselors [ref] indicated that in many areas UH Hilo has a good reputation that is consistent with our primary mission of providing excellent undergraduate programs. UHH is seen as a small liberal arts type campus with a strong undergraduate program. UHH is also seen as a good fit for Oahu students who want an away from home experience that is not too far away or for students who are interested in such programs as Hawaiian language, tropical ag, or astronomy. These are distinctive competencies that we should emphasize.

Unfortunately, the same survey shows that UHH is seen as having a “reputation not as strong as UH Manoa.” Counselors indicated that they would recommend UH Hilo for students who are “the ones who cannot get into UH Manoa,” “2.5 to 3.0 students ” and “Those that may not meet UH Manoa standards but yet have good enough grades to attend UH Hilo.”

UH Hilo’s reputation is better in East Hawaii than it is statewide. In the Hilo-Waiakea-Laupahoehoe complex, the survey of high school seniors indicates that more students intend to enroll at UHH than at any other four year institution (20%, or 80 total). Statewide, however, only 3% of students (236) intend to enroll at UHH, the same percentage that intends to enroll at HPU. Twelve percent of graduating seniors statewide intend to enroll at Manoa. This means that outside of East Hawaii, only 156 seniors surveyed in the entire state intend to go to UH Hilo. This is clearly an area for potential growth.

()

Not only is UHH viewed as having a “reputation not as strong as UH Manoa,” per our posted strategic plan () public perception of Hawaii tertiary education overall is poor overall compared with national figures.

| |Hawaii |U.S. |

|% of state residents who say: A typical college graduate from the state has high levels of skills and |28% |38% |

|knowledge | | |

|% of employers satisfied with how colleges and universities in the state are preparing students for work |23% |46% |

2) Retention is an issue. The most recent Washington Monthly college rankings rated UH Hilo 176 out of 200 liberal arts colleges. The WM rankings are meant to be a socially conscious alternative to US News & World Report rankings, which tend to be correlated to a school’s wealth. Washington Monthly measures how good a school is at providing social mobility to low income and underrepresented students. UHH’s biggest negative was the actual versus expected graduation rate; 31% versus 51%. As the system implements incentives related to numbers of graduates, this will become an issue of increasing importance.

3) Many students are unprepared for college level work. This is not unique to Hawaii; nationwide, about half of high school graduates are unprepared for college work (Greene, 2005). In a campuswide survey of UHH faculty, a plurality indicated that basic grammar, writing and critical thinking skills were all major issues with our students. Students who are not ready for college work should be directed to HCC for remediation per our posted strategic plan. This is not happening currently because we do not have a robust and mandatory suite of placement tests. Some institutions use standardized test scores for remedial placement. The Florida State system places into remediation students scoring below 440 on SAT verbal or math, or 17 ACT English, 19 ACT Math, or 18 ACT reading. (;

). According to these standards [how many of our students would be considered remedial? Brendan’s data]

Tradeoffs involved in admissions standards

At this time, the Admissions Committee is not making specific recommendations with regard to admissions standards. Rather, in this section we provide an evidence-based overview of the likely tradeoffs involved in increasing standards to approximate those of UH-Manoa, and keeping the standards that are currently in place.

While we provide no specific directives with regard to academic hurdles, in Section 3 we do make recommendations for lowering non-academic barriers for students.

Currently, for incoming freshmen we require a 3.0 academic high school GPA. If the GPA is 3.0 or higher, SAT/ACT scores are not used. For students with a GPA lower than 3.0, SAT / ACT is used on a sliding scale.

Manoa’s admissions policy according to their website is stated as a 3.0 academic high school GPA in addition to SAT scores of 510 (critical reading), 510 (writing), and 510 (math) or ACT score of 22.

Evidence in favor of keeping the current standards:

There is concern that raising standards could cause a dip in enrollment. If Manoa’s standard were applied to our current entering freshman class, [Brendan’s data here.] On the other hand, UH Manoa did not see a predicted dip in enrollment after raising its standards in 2002.

[pic]

Fewer than half of UHH students are subject to admissions standards. Transfer students are required only to have maintained a C average in 24 units of academic classes in any community college. Raising admissions standards would not affect transfer students. Transfer student policy is decided at the BOR level.

Fewer than half of UHH students are subject to admissions standards. Transfer students are required only to have maintained a C average in 24 units of academic classes

Evidence in favor of raising standards:

Increasing standards can increase enrollment. CUNY increased admissions standards and ended nearly all remediation programs and experienced a 24 percent enrollment increase in five years. (). The University of Nebraska at Lincoln saw increased applications and enrollments following their raising admissions standards, largely from students in the top 20% of their high school class (, ; ). The changes were implemented in the mid 1990s, and UNL continued to see growth at least through 2005. On the other hand, UH Manoa increased its admissions standards in 2002 and saw neither a dramatic increase nor a dramatic decrease in enrollment.

Standardized test scores predict retention (Brooks and DuBois, 1995, Pritchard and Wilson, 2003). A study of 513 accredited public institutions using IPEDS data indicated that institutional selectivity was associated with higher graduation rates: “admitting one percentage point more of those who apply for undergraduate admission results, on average, in a decline of .295 percentage point in graduation rates.” (Hamrick, 2004). At UH Hilo, [waiting for Brendan’s data]

Standardized test scores predict GPA (Zimmerman, 2003, Betts and Morell, 1999); a recent study at the University of California indicated that the SAT II subject test is the best single predictor of first year GPA, although adding other measures increases predictive value ()

Higher admissions standards improve an institution’s reputation. The caliber of students is a determinant of institutional reputation, and institutional reputation in turn affects both recruitment (Goenner and Snaith, 2004) and retention (Nguyen and LeBlanc, 2001, Belanger et al., 2002).

Higher admissions standards can help us recruit Native Hawaiian students by making UHH more attractive to Kamehameha graduates who are currently going to the Continental United States for college. “Graduates who plan to attend a four-year college or university on the U.S. continent have a mean grade point average of 3.3 and relatively high SAT-I Verbal and SAT-I Math scores, averaging around 548 and 610, respectively.” (Imua, September 2004). Admissions standards close to these levels would position UH Hilo as a match for these students’ potential rather than a step down.

(ksbe.edu/pase/pdf/Reports/Post-graduation/03_04_9.pdf).

Raising admissions standards will accelerate student performance upwards through peer effects. Peers influence academic performance (Sacerdote, 2001). Students have their GPA pulled up by having a roommate with a high verbal SAT, or pulled down by having a roommate with a low verbal SAT, and students at the very low and very high ends of the distribution are far less prone to peer effects than those in the middle. (Zimmerman, 2003). If we are admitting more low-end students than high-end, these results would lead us to predict that overall student performance will be pulled down.

3) Non academic hurdles: The recommendations that our committee has agreed

on, pertaining to lowering *non* academic barriers. These are what we

agreed on back in January and include:

* Implement a mandatory first year / first semester program for incoming

freshmen and transfer students

* Examine and clean up the "hygeine factors" that cause dissatisfaction such

as parking permits, web access to catalog and other services, limited times

and slots for placement testing, and insufficient numbers of seats in

required intro classes

* Implement on site childcare for students (having this open to faculty

would probably be helpful as well)

* Start a dialogue with the Athletics Department to see what they did in

2000/2001 to increase their graduation rate, and determine if there is

anything we can learn from them

Is there anything else that should be included? Nina and Reni, we haven't

heard from you, what do you think?

Em

Introduction

UH Hilo has the opportunity to occupy a unique niche. No other institution in Hawaii offers a high quality, affordable undergraduate liberal arts education.

Currently, UH Hilo enrolls fewer than 3% of Hawaii first time freshmen. As the only public (and therefore affordable) small liberal arts college in the state of Hawaii, UHH should be seen as an excellent option for college bound Hawaii high school graduates.

Issues

Recommendations: Building our culture, knocking down nonacademic hurdles

Organizational culture is important because it:

• Defines the boundary between one organization and others

• Conveys a sense of identity for its members

• Facilitates the generation of commitment to something larger than self-interest

• Enhances the stability of the social system

• Serves as a sense-making and control mechanism organization members

• Allows the organization to accomplish things!

(Robbins, 2003)

In order to build student, faculty and staff commitment to the organization, we need to clear away unnecessary annoyances and obstacles. Currently we admit more students than we can house. We admit students who are responsible for young children, but we do not make childcare available. We admit students who require remediation in math, writing, and possibly reading, but we do not have a remediation program.

Our website and marketing materials, our library hours, parking policies, and the way we allocate resources to classrooms and labs all send a message about how highly we value our students and their success.

The outcomes of appropriate organizational socialization are high productivity and commitment, and low turnover.

Student “productivity” is being measured via assessment programs, which are still in their infancy.

As far as commitment and turnover, UH Hilo’s attrition rate is high. We do not know how much of this attrition is pre-planned, however.

The most recent Washington Monthly college rankings rated UH Hilo 176 out of 200 liberal arts colleges. The WM rankings are meant to be a socially conscious alternative to US News & World Report rankings, which tend to be correlated to a school’s wealth. Washington Monthly measures how good a school is at providing social mobility to low income and underrepresented students. UHH’s biggest negative was the actual versus expected graduation rate; 31% versus 51%. The fact that our actual rate is twenty points lower than predicted may indicate that we are admitting students who require more support than we are providing.

Recommendation 1: Mandatory, universal First Year program. This includes enforcing ENG 100 being taken the first semester. This will require offering sufficient numbers of sections. A well coordinated first year program will calibrate student expectations, let students know what is expected of them, and foster organizational commitment

Recommendation 2: On-site childcare.

A survey of first and second year students indicated that over 10% were considering leaving UHH because of childcare and family responsibilities. Among Native Hawaiian students the number was closer to 12%. Although faculty attrition is outside the purview of the Admissions Committee, we suspect that available on site childcare would be a boon to faculty with young children as well.

Recommendation 3: Resource allocation to improve quality of student life

On site study/meeting/food service areas

Coordinated online catalog/registration

Bookstore improvements

Parking permit improvements

Tradeoffs: Issues pertaining to admissions standards

At this point the Admissions Committee is not recommending specific admissions standards. Any recommendation would be premature in light of the proposed system resource allocation changes. Instead, we present potential tradeoffs associated with three courses of action that are frequently brought up: Raising admissions standards for first year entering students, keeping admissions standards the same for first year entering students, and relaxing standards for first year students so that first year students and transfer students are subject to consistent standards.

Currently we are admiting underprepared students, and providing them uneven support, little or no mandatory remediation, and no accommodation for work or family. While there are many different counseling options and special programs, there is no systematic or mandatory remediation, no evening program, and no on-site child care. This combination of high-need students with low levels of academic and work-life support is likely to ensure continued high attrition rate among students and negative feedback from employers.

If we wish to increase the level of academic challenge and quality at UH Hilo, we, the faculty, must commit to doing our part. If we are gifted with well-prepared students and capped class sizes, we must provide a consistently deep level of challenge in order to keep those students engaged and help them to realize their potential.

What predicts performance?

If test scores can predict GPA and retention, why do we not see a significant relationship between SAT and first year GPA among UHH students? We believe that one likely explanation is to be found in the research on peer effects.

If we raise standards, will we lose students?

Some have expressed concern that raising standards might decrease head count. Even though Chancellor Englert had predicted that raising admissions standards would shift 6,000-9,000 students to other UH campuses, Manoa’s fall enrollment did not decrease, nor did that of other campuses increase. In the end, Manoa increased student quality without sacrificing quantity. ()

The (surprising) case against remediation.

Our investigations indicate that the source of our poor local reputation is our well-known lack of selectivity. Many of our current admitted freshmen are unprepared for college. According to our current strategic plan, these students should be directed to HCC for remediation, but are not. One natural first reaction to this information is to recommend instituting a robust remediation program. This was certainly the initial assumption of many on the Admissions Committee. Further research into this issue, however, revealed that in addition to usurping the mission of the Community Colleges, efforts at instituting remediation would do little to help anyone.

One option we have is to embrace the fact that we are functioning as a remedial school, and structure our offerings accordingly. This would be in direct violation of our mission and BOR directives indicating that remediation is the responsibility of the CCs. It is unlikely that the system would grant sufficient resources for instituting the extensive remediation required by our current student population. Institutions with similar student profiles to ours have mandatory placement tests at entry and offer up to three years of not-for-credit developmental courses in reading, writing, and math; that is, the equivalent of tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade in each of those topics.

The more profound the need for remediation, the less effective remediation is, so that resources spent on the least prepared students result in extremely small gains, while the same resources spent on average students result in much larger gains, and/or gains for greater numbers of students. The strongest evidence against remediation, however, is a recent study out of RAND and UT Dallas indicating that the estimated billion-plus dollars per year spent on first-year college remediation, when analyzed in the aggregate, provides little benefit either for individual students or for society in general (Martorell and McFarlin, 2007). If we were to embrace our current role as a largely remedial institution, we would be forfeiting our opportunity to be an engine of social mobility for Hawaii.

Recommendations

What are we doing right?

We still have small class sizes for most courses. This is probably our main competitive advantage, and it is one we should guard passionately.

Most classes are taught by full time tenure track faculty; we make appropriate use of adjuncts, except in the English department, where many lower division courses are taught by nontenured professors. Composition courses must be taught by tenured faculty who know that they are not risking their continued employment by enforcing academic rigor (Guinn, 2006, Falkenberg and Greenwald, 2007).

We are publicizing our unique Hawaiian Language, Marine Science and Volcanology programs. This is important in developing and promoting our unique identity, rather than striving to be a poor man’s Manoa.

What could we change in order to do better?

We recommend following our mission to offer high quality undergraduate liberal arts and professional programs. Although graduation rates are not explicitly mentioned in our mission statement, we believe that the following measures will improve our quality, our culture, our reputation, and consequently our graduation and retention rates.

|Recommendation |Where it fits |Comments |Cost |

|Ongoing program to work with high |RECRUITMENT |UHH is the most popular 4 year |Personnel and travel money |

|schools on aligning standards, and| |college for East Hawaii HS |need to be dedicated to this |

|HS counselors on clarifying our | |seniors, but reputation lags on |program |

|market position | |other islands. Working with HS | |

| | |fits with statewide P20 | |

| | |initiative; Brain development is | |

| | |complete by early 20s, earlier | |

| | |interventions might be more | |

| | |effective. | |

|Adopt higher standards; at least |REPUTATION |. |.None foreseen; Manoa had no |

|Manoa’s minimum 510 SAT or 22 ACT |RETENTION | |dip in enrollment when they |

|in each subject for admission to |MISSION | |raised their standards in |

|the University | | |2003. |

|Mandatory FYE: academically |EARLY |Taught by academic faculty. |Faculty time and commitment |

|rigorous semester course as pre-or|SOCIALIZATION |Includes 1) History and norms of | |

|co-requisite for all other | |academia 2) Local Hawaii history | |

|courses. | |and culture 3) Basic health | |

| | |biology and poli sci (see U of O).| |

|Recruit returning local students |ONGOING SOCIALIZATION, |Those who are education-resistant |Childcare center operating |

|with a coherent evening program |ACADEMIC SUCCESS |at 18 can become some of our best |7:30am-9pm weekdays, |

|and affordable on-site child care |MISSION |students decades later, |commitment to running |

|available during all class times. | |strengthening the culture by |underenrolled evening classes|

| | |providing positive role models. | |

|Charge tuition per course, not per|ACADEMIC SUCCESS |We have too many students loading | |

|semester. | |up on courses and underperforming | |

| | |in all of them. The per-semester | |

| | |all-you-can-eat model also | |

| | |discourages students from | |

| | |enrolling in HCC where necessary. | |

|Standardized code of |ONGOING SOCIALIZATION |Master Syllabus type code of | |

|professionalism | |professionalism optional but | |

| | |available to faculty. May include| |

| | |items such as no hats in class, no| |

| | |laptops, no cell phones, upper | |

| | |division courses expected to take | |

| | |3 hours for every class hour, etc.| |

|Limit class size to 20 |RECRUITMENT |Takes advantage of one of our |Lose economies of scale, gain|

| |ACADEMIC SUCCESS |biggest strengths. Enables |recruitment advantage. |

| |MISSION |writing across the disciplines. | |

|Writing across the curriculum |RECRUITMENT | |Requires capping class size |

| |ACADEMIC SUCCESS | |(see above) |

| |ONGOING SOCIALIZATION | | |

|Raise the cap on out of state to |RECRUITMENT |Local parents would like their |Would increase revenues, as |

|50-60%. (A local parent suggested| |kids to be exposed to other |out of state tuition is |

|this, expressing interest in UHH | |cultures without moving too far |higher. Economically, higher|

|but saying, “I don’t want [my | |away, getting swallowed up in a |education can be a clean |

|kids] hanging out with the same | |giant R1 like Manoa, or spending a|export industry for Hawaii. |

|people they’ve been with since | |fortune like Oahu private | |

|elementary school.”) | |colleges. | |

|Adopt a realistic student head |ACADEMIC SUCCESS |Growing to 7000 students is |Depends on system reaction |

|count goal |ONGOING SOCIALIZATION |practically and environmentally |and incentive system—UHH |

| |MISSION |unsustainable. Pressure to |would lose money if resources|

| | |increase enrollment leads to our |allocated on head count, but |

| | |current housing crisis, and to |would benefit if resources |

| | |such violations of mission as |were allocated on academic |

| | |taking students more appropriately|quality outcomes. |

| | |directed to HCC. | |

|Decouple student satisfaction from|ACADEMIC SUCCESS |Teaching a rigorous class takes a | |

|faculty evaluation | |great deal of time and effort, and| |

| | |one’s efforts are rewarded by | |

| | |student learning, but not student | |

| | |satisfaction. | |

Other programs to try include

|Leadership honors program |RECRUITMENT |Develop a cohort curriculum for |Pilot for future learning |

| | |current presidential scholars |community programs |

UH Manoa has taken a different tack. UHM very publicly moved to raise standards in 2003, stating that they hoped to shift the burden of underprepared students elsewhere in the system:

“The debate on whether to raise admission standards at Manoa -- and move those who are unable to meet them to other four- or two-year UH campuses -- began to gain momentum among administrators last year

…

Some also said that too much remedial teaching is being done at Manoa. "We can cater to someone shopping around trying to find the lowest standards, or we can cater to someone shopping around trying to find the highest," said UH-Manoa philosophy professor James Tiles

…

"If we have an opportunity for 6,000 to 9,000 to go to another part of the system, we would not have to carry the burden we are now," [former chancellor Peter] Englert said.”

()

Signaling low selectivity tells high achievers that they should go elsewhere. The selectivity of a university is self-reinforcing, with higher standards attracting higher-achieving students and increasing both recruitment and retention (Goenner and Snaith, 2004, Nguyen and LeBlanc, 2001, Belanger et al., 2002) . 

References

BELANGER, C., MOUNT, J. & WILSON, M. (2002) Institutional Image and Retention. Tertiary Education and Management, 8, 217-230.

BETTS, J. & MORELL, D. (1999) The Determinants of Undergraduate Grade Point Average: The Relative Importance of Family Background, High School Resources, and Peer Group Effects. Journal of Human Resources, 34, 268–293.

BROOKS, J. H. & DUBOIS, D. L. (1995) Individual and environmental predictors of adjustment during the first

year of college. . Journal of College Student Development, 36, 347-360.

FALKENBERG, S. & GREENWALD, A. G. (2007) The Influence of Grades on Teaching Effectiveness Ratings. Association for Psychological Science 19th Annual Convention. Washington, D.C.

GOENNER, C. F. & SNAITH, S. M. (2004) Assessing the Effects of Increased Admission Standards. College and University, 80, 29-34.

GREENE, J., & WINTERS, M. (2005). (2005) Public high school graduation and college-readiness rates: 1991-2002. New York, Manhattan Institute.

GUINN, B. V., VERN (2006) The Influence of Grades on Teaching Effectiveness Ratings at a Hispanic-Serving Institution. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 5, 313-321.

HAMRICK, F. A., SCHUH, J. H., & SHELLEY, M. C. (2004, MAY 4). , 12, 19. (2004) Predicting higher education graduation rates from institutional characteristics and resource allocation. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 12.

LEONG, L. (1999) Isles lose many of ‘the best and brightest’. Star-Bulletin. Honolulu.

MARTORELL, P. & MCFARLIN, I. (2007) Help or Hindrance? The Effects of College Remediation on Academic and Labor Market Outcomes. RAND and University of Texas at Dallas.

NGUYEN, N. & LEBLANC, G. (2001) Image and reputation of higher education institutions in students’ retention decisions. International Journal of Educational Management, 15, 303-311.

PRITCHARD, M. E. & WILSON, G. S. (2003) Using Emotional and Social Factors to Predict

Student Success. Journal of College Student Development, 44, 18-28.

ROBBINS, S. P. (2003) Organizational Behavior, Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice Hall.

SACERDOTE, B. (2001) Peer Effects with Random Assignment: Results for Dartmouth Roommates. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116, 681-704.

ZIMMERMAN, D. J. (2003) Peer Effects in Academic Outcomes: Evidence from a Natural Experiment. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 85, 9-23.

Remediation: cutoffs:

SAT

Verbal 440

Math 440

ACT

English 17

Math 19

Reading 18



These are the Florida state cutoffs



CUNY (which is nominally open admissions):

Under the new standards, freshmen will have to earn at least 510 on the math SAT to win entry to the five top colleges, and 500 for the bachelor's degree programs at the other senior colleges -- John Jay, Lehman, Medgar Evers, New York City College of Technology, Staten Island and York. The university minimum is now 480, although some colleges have set higher cutoffs.

Manoa:

Profile of Admitted Students. All applications are evaluated on an individual basis. Generally, successful applicants attain a B (not B-) average for all college-preparatory high school course work, achieve SAT scores of 510 (critical reading), 510 (writing), and 510 (math) or ACT score of 22 in each section, and rank in the upper 40 percent of their graduating class.

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