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Late-Admits, a Retention Black Hole: A Cross-Sectional Survey Design

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Explore millions of resources from scholarly journals, books, newspapers, videos and more, on the ProQuest Platform.

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About the Researcher                    

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About the Researcher                    

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I have spent twenty years of my life working in higher education; from giving campus tours in admissions as an undergraduate, to helping run a one stop student service center that handles billing, financial aid and a wide range of other topics.

I earned a BA in communications from the University of Hartford in 2002, a Master in operational management from Harvard in 2012, and completed my Doctorate from Drexel University in the fall of 2021.

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The problem presented in this study is that four-year public colleges in New England are admitting undergraduate students at the last minute with little to no knowledge about the impact of this practice or the retention and success rates of this group of students. Colleges are under enormous pressure to enroll as many students as possible to help balance their budgets, but this may also be perpetuating the problem of admitting students until the last possible day allowed.

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Based on the research the author is conducting the next steps for the future are:

Look into whether or not data collected at four-year public colleges on late-admits aligns with the existing data from two-year colleges.

Determine if public four-year colleges have a similar retention problem when it comes to late-admits.

Assess if further research on late-admits will be needed in other areas of higher education. Examples are private colleges, flagship publics, other four-year public colleges outside the New England region.

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The current research on late-admit students has predominantly been focused at the community college level. Research is limited on late-admit students at the four-year public college level of education. This research will help further our understanding of late-admit students by investigating the phenomena at the four-year public college level within New England.

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Current knowledge around late-admits is concentrated at the community college level (Bean & Metzner, 1985; Freer-Weiss, 2005; Tinto, 1993; Weiss, 1999; Windham, 1994). Since public four-year colleges represent 25% of the total landscape within higher education in the United States (“How Many Colleges,” 2019), this research has the potential to impact a significant audience.

This research will advance the work done by prior researchers, such as Tinto (1985) and Freer-Weiss (2005; Weiss, 1999), who have investigated the issue at the community college level by using the experiences, knowledge, and perceptions of the administrative staff and leaders who work with late-admits.

Examining the outcomes of admitting students late by investigating the experiences, knowledge, and perceptions of the administrative staff and leaders who work with these students will allow a deeper understanding of any problems associated with this practice at a four-year public college in New England.

Research on late-admits at four-year public colleges is needed by the enrollment administrators and leaders of these schools, who can use the results to investigate their own enrollment practices to maximize student success at their institutions.

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The purpose of this cross-sectional survey design research (Creswell & Guetterman, 2019, p. 386) is to examine the attitudes, beliefs, and opinions of administrative staff and leaders from public four-year institutions in the New England region who have worked with both late-admits and on-time students to determine if they believe a difference exists in the success rates of the two groups.

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The state of higher education in the US is in crisis. With college tuition at an all-time high and student loan debt over 1.5 trillion dollars (Friedmen, 2018; Sweet, 2018), parents and students are questioning if college is the right decision. Add to that a decreasing population of college age students in New England and one can see why colleges and universities across the region are struggling to maintain their enrollment and operating budgets. Over the past two years, 20 private college have closed their doors, and even more are projected to close (Horn, 2018). This research will explore the current crisis impacting higher education institutions in the United States and how that may be impacting why schools allow late-admit students.

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1) How do administrators and leaders of four-year public colleges in New England believe undergraduate late-admit students’ retention rates compare to the retention rates of on-time students at the same school?

2) How do administrators and leaders of four-year public colleges in New England believe the race, gender, and age of undergraduate late-admit students at four-year public colleges compare to the race, gender, and age of their on-time counterparts at the same school?

3) What do administrators and leaders at four-year public colleges in New England believe is the impact that external pressures have on undergraduate late-admit policies/practices at their institution?

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For this research the follow terms have been defined to help clarify content:

Add/Drop is the period at the beginning of each semester during which students can move in and out of classes before finalizing their schedule and their tuition bill without penalty.

Appreciative inquiry (AI) is defined as follows:

The co-evolutionary search for the best in people, their organizations, and the world around them. It involves systematic discovery of what gives a system “life” when it is most effective and capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. AI involves the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to heighten positive potential. (Orr & Cleveland-Innes, 2015, pp. 235‒236)

Creative leadership has been described by Puccio et al. (2011) as follows:

The ability to deliberately engage one’s imagination to define and guide a group towards a novel goal—a direction that is new for the group. As a consequence of bringing about this creative change, creative leaders have a profound positive influence on their context (i.e., workplace, community, school, family) and the individuals in that situation. (p. 13)

COVID-19is a communicable respiratory disease “caused by infection with a new coronavirus (called SARS-CoV-2)” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). This virus is affecting people across the globe (WHO, 2020).

Disruptive technology is “an innovation that significantly alters the way that consumers, industries, or businesses operate” (Smith, 2020).

Enrollment management “is an organizational concept and systematic set of activities whose purpose is to exert influence over student enrollment” (Hossler et al., 1990, p. 5, as cited in Penn, 1999, p. 5).

FAFSA is the acronym for “the free application for federal student aid … [that] represents the gateway to the majority of financial assistance for college students” (McKinney & Novak, 2015, p.2).

Fixes that fail is a system archetype that helps to explain why temporary solutions to problems fail and create a larger problem than existed in the first place (Senge et al., 2012).

Idea agent “is someone who can create an environment that will optimize development processes, and who keeps distinct methods up his or her figurative sleeves that will solve commonplace or future issues” (Michanek & Breiler, 2014, p. 13).

Late-admit is an undergraduate student who applies and is accepted to a higher education program and registers for classes within the period beginning two weeks prior to the start of a semester through the end of the add/drop period.

Late-admit period is two weeks prior to the start of a higher education semester through the end of the add/drop period.

Leadership is a person or group of people who establish and align the direction and goals of an organization (Kotterman, 2006).

On-time is the term for undergraduate students who are accepted by their college or university and register for classes by the date of orientation or at least before the late-admit period (Street, 2000).

Performance-based funding links “a college’s state dollars to factors such as enrollment, degree completion, and how successfully students are prepared for the workforce” (Wade, 2018).

Registration period is the range of dates established by a college or university during which “students register, … which is typically two to four months prior to classes starting” (Washington, 2019, p.5).

Self-efficacy is a person’s belief in their ability to succeed in a specific situation or at a specific task (Tinto, 2017).

Systems archetypes are “common and usually recurring patterns of behavior in organizations. These patterns almost always result in negative consequences” (Taborga, 2020).

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Conceptual Framework of Current Research

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Conceptual Framework of Current Research