Graduate Admissions, Retention and Funding

1. Graduate Admissions, Retention and Funding Fall 2002

2. Philip Oxhorn Real del Degan Denis Marchand Sebastien Dube Claude Lalande Larry Verkade Sandra Popote Acknowledgements

3. McGill’s Objectives • High quality students • High graduation rates • Timely completion rates • Timely decisions concerning withdrawal

4. Canadian Government’s Objectives • Improved Performance in Research and Development • Need for more Highly Qualified Personnel • 80,000 HQP needed by 2011 • 40,000 more than Canadian universities presently graduate

5. Some Possible Enrollment Management and Funding Inter-relationships • The quality of who we admit is affected by funding • The numbers we can take is affected by the time it takes to graduate • The time it takes to graduate is influenced by the amount of funding

6. McGill Graduate Admissions

7. Admissions by Geographic Area • Quebec • Canada • US • Overseas

8. Overseas USA Doctoral Level – All Faculties Quebec Rest of Canada

9. Geographic Source of Newly Admitted and Registered Graduate Students1999/2000/2001 Overseas Quebec USA Masters Level – All Faculties Rest of Canada

10. Geographic Source of Newly Registered Graduate Students (PhD Level)

11. Geographic Source of Newly Registered Graduate Students (Masters Level)

12. Admissions • Applications • Offers • Registrations • GPA • Offers/Applications=Selectivity • Offers/Registrations=Yield

13. Inter-relationship of selectivity and yield: Three cases • Ideal: Dept A: Selectivity =12%, Yield=90% • Problems with registering well selected students: Dept B: Selectivity =20%, Yield=50% • Small applicant pool and difficulty registering students Dept C: Selectivity=75%, Yield=50%

14. GPA Statistics Admitted and Registered Graduate Students Fall 2001 – All Levels

15. Issues Raised by Faculty GPA data • The GPAs of students offered admission is not much different that students who end up coming to McGill • The yield rates are not significantly different in departments/faculties who guarantee funding and those that do not

17. 2002 changes • Electronic applications have increased number of applications dramatically • This is in part due to the elimination of pre-screening • There is a sizeable rise in number of applications from the US with an equally large rise in offers to that group

18. McGill Graduate Retention Data

19. G 10 Project on Retention • The Principals of G10 universities commissioned the following retention study. • It is a cohort study based on the 1992 cohort. • NB: Master’s students are only those who did not pursue degrees in the same universities

20. Retention: 3 Factors to Consider • Graduate Rates • Time to Completion (TTC) • Time to Withdrawal

23. Requests for extensions of Time Limitations at McGill • 2002= 388 PhDs and Master’s requested an extension to normal time limitations (PhD7 and Master’s 3) • This is the smallest number to make this request in the last 3 years.

24. Time to Drop Out • The following graphs show that McGill’s students drop out less in early years and more in later years than the average in G10 universities.

25. McGill Total % University X Total % Average % (-McGill) Percent of Total Dropouts - All DisciplinesMasters

26. McGill Total % University X Total % Average % (-McGill) Percent of Total Dropouts - HumanitiesMasters

27. McGill Total % University X Total % Average % (-McGill) Percent of Total Dropouts – Social SciencesMasters

28. McGill Total % University X Total % Average % (-McGill) Percent of Total Dropouts – Physical & Applied SciencesMasters

29. McGill Total % University X Total % Average % (-McGill) Percent of Total Dropouts – Life SciencesMasters

30. McGill Total % University X Total % Average % (-McGill) Percent of Total Dropouts - All DisciplinesDoctoral

31. McGill Total % University X Total % Average % (-McGill) Percent of Total Dropouts - Humanities Doctoral

32. McGill Total % University X Total % Average % (-McGill) Percent of Total Dropouts – Social Sciences Doctoral

33. McGill Total % University X Total % Average % (-McGill) Percent of Total Dropouts – Physical & Applied Sciences Doctoral

34. McGill Total % University X Total % Average % (-McGill) Percent of Total Dropouts – Life Sciences Doctoral

35. Improvement needed • McGill must improve graduation rates, time to completion and time to withdrawal in most disciplines. • Appropriate advising is needed. • Mechanisms for annual progress tracking are needed in all units.

36. McGill Doctoral Funding

37. Weaknesses in Doctoral Funding Data • These data are not fully accurate. Due to difficulties in getting students and departments to submit accurate accounts of each individual the data are based on central sources. • The central sources do not capture all students, especially those paid on casual payroll, those from international fellowships and faculty administered fellowships

38. Doctoral data continued • However, the relative amounts of funding across faculties gives a reasonable indicator of comparative amounts of funding. • Continued work to improve these data is underway.

39. Doctoral Funding • Current Levels of Funding • Average Amount of Funding for PhDs • Amount Needed to Guarantee Funding (SSH=$15,000 ENMS=18,000) • Sources of Funding: McGill and UofT • Guaranteed Funding and Yield