With debates surrounding the use of college rankings as a yardstick for helping students choose a college, the National Survey of Student Engagement, or the NSSE, wants to play by different rules.
 
The NSSE (pronounced Nessie) is a study that goes beyond traditional college ranking markers like SAT scores of incoming freshmen and tuition.

Rather, the NSSE’s goal is to measure the quality of an undergraduate education by examining how actively-involved students are with their studies, professors and the campus community. The organization believes that the more engaged students are, the more likely they are to learn.

Since its debut in 2000, NSSE has surveyed nearly 1,200 schools at least once.

The NSSE survey consists of 85 questions, 42 of which contribute to five categories, or “benchmarks” levels of academic challenge, student-faculty interaction, the extent to which a college offers an active and collaborative learning environment, opportunities to take advantage of cultural or extracurricular experiences, and whether the school creates a supportive environment for different groups on campus. Research shows that these activities, while not direct measures of learning, are associated with student success.

Colleges used to keep their results quiet using their data as an internal assessment tool to make changes. For example, after NSSE results at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, VT, demonstrated that first-year students benefit from regular interaction with professors, the school set a goal to increase the percentage of full-time faculty who teach first-year seminars.

This year, for the first time, NSSE is encouraging participating schools to make their scores publicly available. So students and parents can use the info to help them access colleges. We thought you might be interested to know.

General applications like the Common App and the Universal College App are increasing in popularity as a one-size-fits-all admissions application.

But sometimes one size doesn’t quite fit everybody. For instance, you may not be interested in the same college major across all the schools that you are applying to. Or you may not require the same kind of financial aid at each institution. Or, you may not want to apply for Early Action or Early Decision at every school.

The standardized applications are trying to include these differences without reverting back to the institutions’ individual applications.

Beginning July 1, 2008, when the next admissions cycle starts, the online Common Application will include a handful of questions that may be answered differently for different colleges within the Common Application itself. These questions include academic interest, career interest, decision plan (Early Decision, Early Acceptance, rolling, etc.), entry term (Fall or Spring), and financial aid intent.

The online Common App will also let you hide certain answers for certain schools. For example, if standardized test scores are optional at a particular school, the college may decide to suppress all standardized test scores. The Common App will then prevent that college from seeing your scores. These changes will cut down the number of alternative versions that you need to write - which means less work for you!

The Universal College Application also allows users to tailor your application, but to a lesser extent.

If you realize that you made a mistake (be it grammatical or if you provided wrong information), the Universal College App allows you to make a copy of your submission, make the desired changes, and then submit the desired application to other designated member colleges or universities.

All this to say, standardized application doesn’t mean that you are standard in any way. These tools will only help you stand out from the crowd!

Alright. These are some of the blogs that I am working on and will be posting this week:

The Common App Revised: This one is about how the common application doesn’t want you to be common. Therefore, the app has made some changes so that you can hand in different versions to different colleges - without having to create an entirely alternate version. This is pretty cool. The common app uses sophisticated technology so that you can be lazy… okay, or more efficient!

The National Survey of Student Engagement (the NSSE): This post checks out NSSE, an organization that seeks to gauge the quality of an undergraduate education by looking at how actively-involved students are with their studies, professors and the campus community. This year, for the first time, NSSE is encouraging participating schools to make their scores publicly available. We thought you’d be interested.

College Fairs: Before summer vacation gets underway, college fairs are in full swing. They give you an opportunity to ask some questions to different schools that you might be interested in. The CampusCompare Team went to the NACAC College Fair in Providence, Rhode Island. Find out what happened…

And more. So keep checking in this week to read about the trends in college admissions and applications!