The Admitted Student Questionnaire, sponsored by The College Board, is sent to all students who have been admitted to Earlham. The questionnaire is designed to find out what students really think of our programs, recruitment literature, financial aid packages, competition, and more. Students are asked to rate colleges on image (highly respected, expensive, diverse, etc.) and on characteristics (academic reputation, cost of attendance, quality of academic facilities, etc.). The College Board provides a detailed report of their findings.

Thirty-five percent of the students who were admitted for Fall 2008 completed the survey.  Of those who responded, 44.5% enrolled at Earlham.

The detailed report of the Admitted Student Questionnaire can be found in hard copy in the Office of Institutional Research.  To view some of the highlights from the ASQ report on-line, click on the following links:

• Students rank the importance of characteristics (pdf) and then rate Earlham and competitors on those characteristics
• How Earlham compares to competitors on academic and social factors (pdf)
• How Earlham compares to competitors on academic and setting factors (pdf)
• How Earlham compares to competitors on social and setting factors (pdf)
• Application and Admission Overlaps
  • How many of the Earlham admitted students applied to these competitors? (pdf)
  • How many of the Earlham admitted students were also admitted to these competitors? (pdf)
  • How many of the Earlham admitted students included these competitors among their top three college choices? (pdf)
  • How many of the Earlham admitted students enrolled with these competitors? (pdf)
  • How many of the Earlham admitted students rated these competitors? (pdf)

• Demographic characteristics and type of high school      
• Geographic distribution
• Average high school grades and admission test scores

• Importance of college characteristics
• Ratings of Earlham by enrolling and non-enrolling students
• College images frequently associated with our college

• How often sources of information were used
• Ratings of Earlham’s information sources

• Yields realized for need-based aid applicants and for students awarded need-based aid by Earlham 
• To what extent was the financial aid award significant factor in enrollment decision?
• Ratings of cost 
• Influence on yield of financial aid or college cost
• Amount and type of financial aid awarded
• Aid percentage by type
• Methods of financing parental contribution

• Number of applications and admissions to other colleges
• Top twelve competitors
• Colleges attended by non-enrolling students
• Win/loss analysis for colleges with greatest number of cross-admissions
• Top choice colleges
• Preference rank of colleges attended by all admitted students

• Importance and rating of college characteristics
• College images
• Financial Aid applications and awards
• Amount and type of financial aid awarded
• Win/loss analysis – for colleges with greatest numbers of cross-admissions

The Admitted Student Questions also provides us with competitor analysis for Oberlin, Grinnell, Wooster, Beloit and Kenyon.  It begins with an overview of the comparison groups comparing Earlham and these schools on academic, social, and setting factors.

For each competitor college, we are given the following data:

• Applications and admission overlap
• Demographic profile of students rating our competitors
• Summary of comparison with these competitors
• Comparative importance and rating of college characteristics
• Yield for college characteristics rated very important
• College characteristics
• Ratings of characteristics for Earlham and our competitors
• Magnitude and direction of ratings differences between Earlham and competitors
• College images
• College images frequently associated with Earlham and our competitors
• Exposure to sources of information
• Sources of information rated excellent
• Financial aid and cost

For information from the detailed report, contact Polly Wilde in the Office of Institutional Research.