Only 50% of UNC Charlotte students Graduate

University News and Notes
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[QUOTE]At a time when college degrees are valuable–with employers paying a premium for college graduates–[B]fewer than 60 percent of new students graduated from four-year colleges within six years.[/B] At many institutions, graduation rates are far worse. Graduation rates may be of limited import to students attending the couple hundred elite, specialized institutions that dominate the popular imagination, but there are vast disparities–even among schools educating similar students–at the less selective institutions that educate the bulk of America’s college students. At a time when President Barack Obama is proposing vast new investments to promote college attendance and completion, and has announced an intention to see the United States regain leadership in such tallies, these results take on heightened significance.[/QUOTE]

Not sure if this includes the # of graduates that take longer than 6 years to graduate, but it would seem they did not include that group. We suffer more from attrition and longer degree terms because we are in such an urban environment. Non-traditional students make up a lot greater proportion of students for us then many other universities in the state. I am one such. I work full time in the engineering field and can only take one or at most two classes a semester. I believe if these #s included ALL graduates we would be in the mid-60% range of graduates.

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The lack of direction giving to Arts/Science-Undeclared freshmen and sophomores is a huge problem for us. I went in as one, knowing I would pick either Comp. Sci. or Comp. Eng., but if I didn’t have an idea of what I wanted to do, I would have been totally lost. The randomly-assigned “advisors” for undeclared students are horrible (I don’t remember if they are teachers stuck with the task or what…). There should be some responsiblity on college students to make their own decisions, but when they meet with these advisors during SOAR and then again in November, they need somebody who can actually advise rather than tell them they need to take a class with a “W” goal, a class with a “H” goal, etc, they were much more concerned with making sure you had the pre-reqs than helping to pick a major.

Besides that, we are a huge school that doesn’t carry a prestegious academic reputation to the general population of the state. So we are going to admit a lot of people who simply don’t care, they are only going to college because that’s the thing to do after high school. HS seniors who do their research will come away impressed with our school academically, but what % of college-bound HS seniors even visit a school before committing? The HS kid with a 4.2 GPA and no clue what major they want to get into has UNC-CH and UNCC applications in front of them, which one are they going to fill out? It sucks, but you just can’t overcome stereotypes like that overnight.

The only surprising thing about the numbers in that article is that ECU is ahead of us. We share a similar academic reputation (whether or not it is deserved) and are both large schools, we should be about the same. Looking closer, I guess it’s only 3% difference, but it’s still painful to see them above us.

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[QUOTE=CMack124;414738] The HS kid with a 4.2 GPA and no clue what major they want to get into has UNC-CH and UNCC applications in front of them, which one are they going to fill out? [/QUOTE]

That’s an easy one. A Charlotte application. A 4.2 isn’t getting you into Chapel Hill in a lot of cases. Maybe in some rural school where the majority of kids don’t go to college or do well in school. Chapel Hill operates on a quota from each region. If they didn’t, the vast majority of their students would come from Charlotte and Raleigh. To diversify, they set a limit on the number of students they’ll take from each school system and each school itself. There was an article in the Observer probably two years ago now that highlighted two students and this issue. They both had GPA’s in the 4.9-5+ range. One got in, the other didn’t despite only a small difference in GPA and virtually identical SAT scores.

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BTW, there are plenty of resources available to students. Especially in their first two years.

There’s FREE tutoring in Fretwell, a FREE writing center, and many classes have TAs that offer FREE extra sessions. Also, every professor is required to offer office hours for assisting students, and these hours are given and printed on the syllabus on day one.

There’s no excuse for failing other than your own damn laziness.

Everything but the TAs students should take advantage of (sorry to any past, present, or future ones,) but every class I’ve been in with them they have done nothing but occasionally grade an exam or two and offer little to no support.
-And when I did go to their review session for a Modern Middle Class I knew more than the TA did, called them out on it and left. (luckily I still got an A in the class :shades:)

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[QUOTE=Jersey Niner32;414740]Everything but the TAs students should take advantage of (sorry to any past, present, or future ones,) but every class I’ve been in with them they have done nothing but occasionally grade an exam or two and offer little to no support.
-And when I did go to their review session for a Modern Middle Class I knew more than the TA did, called them out on it and left. (luckily I still got an A in the class :shades:)[/QUOTE]

did you have it with Aydin? If so, I was probably in there with you. Fall semester 08?

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did you have it with Aydin? If so, I was probably in there with you. Fall semester 08?

Yup that was the class.
-TA was a joke and she shouldn’t have even been there.

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I'm pretty sure the success of an Accounting school is measured by the percentage of grads who pass the CPA Exam their first try.
i'm taking each part over for the 2nd time right now. that exam is a F^&kin B*tc*. wtf???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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[QUOTE=Niner National;414739]That’s an easy one. A Charlotte application. A 4.2 isn’t getting you into Chapel Hill in a lot of cases. Maybe in some rural school where the majority of kids don’t go to college or do well in school. Chapel Hill operates on a quota from each region. If they didn’t, the vast majority of their students would come from Charlotte and Raleigh. To diversify, they set a limit on the number of students they’ll take from each school system and each school itself. There was an article in the Observer probably two years ago now that highlighted two students and this issue. They both had GPA’s in the 4.9-5+ range. One got in, the other didn’t despite only a small difference in GPA and virtually identical SAT scores.[/QUOTE]

That’s a fair point, but a kid with a 4.2, good SAT and extra-ciricular activities is at least going to try for UNC-CH if they don’t have a focused idea of what major they want to go into.

We have a lot of incredibly smart students, I think the biggest factor in these numbers is that our bottom 1/4 (or any arbitrary fraction of choice) of accepted students are the kind of kids who won’t care enough to finish. The bottom 1/4 of the schools near the top of that list at least realize the importance of getting the diploma and are much more likely to ride it out rather than let themselves drop/flunk out. Every school has lazy people, we just tend to get the extremely lazy people because of our acceptance rates.

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Everything but the TAs students should take advantage of (sorry to any past, present, or future ones,) but every class I've been in with them they have done nothing but occasionally grade an exam or two and offer little to no support. -And when I did go to their review session for a Modern Middle Class I knew more than the TA did, called them out on it and left. (luckily I still got an A in the class :shades:)

Um, I TA’d and had to teach a class at the end of my time. I’m sure people hated me. Taught C++ Programming for a semester when the teacher left the previous academic year.

I’m happy Charlotte has such admission standards. Everyone needs a shot. Even ALL the borderline cases. What bothers me, though, is when a teacher dilutes the curriculum to have more people pass than should. We were pressured not to fail people. And there were a few, great persons outside of class, but should not have passed the class.

So, I’d be more happy to see 33% graduation rate even if the people that do graduate know their stuff.

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A good friend of mine had average marks in high school and 1000 on SATs.

He ended up being an honors student majoring in EE and finished with his Masters at UNCC.

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Um, I TA'd and had to teach a class at the end of my time. I'm sure people hated me. Taught C++ Programming for a semester when the teacher left the previous academic year.

I’m happy Charlotte has such admission standards. Everyone needs a shot. Even ALL the borderline cases. What bothers me, though, is when a teacher dilutes the curriculum to have more people pass than should. We were pressured not to fail people. And there were a few, great persons outside of class, but should not have passed the class.

So, I’d be more happy to see 33% graduation rate even if the people that do graduate know their stuff.

Well like I said sorry to any past, present, or future TAs, but all the ones that I have encountered have been essentially useless to the class they’ve been involved with.
-I’m glad to hear that you weren’t though! :shades:

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A 4.2 will get you into Chapel Hill. I know people who finished with GPAs weighted that were closer to 2 than 4 that got into Chapel Hill and graduated.

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A 4.2 will get you into Chapel Hill. I know people who finished with GPAs weighted that were closer to 2 than 4 that got into Chapel Hill and graduated.

I graduated in 2007 from hs and I knew of quite a few people at my school with 4.2’s or higher who didnt get into Chapel Hill. It has gotten alot harder to get into Chapel Hill. I think schools put to much on class rank, cause some places a 4.2 will be top 30 were others it wouldnt be top 100.

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I know people who didn’t graduate in the top 50% of my class that got into Chapel Hill. Maybe it is just because I went to a small school, but they weren’t top 30 students.

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Well like I said sorry to any past, present, or future TAs, but all the ones that I have encountered have been essentially useless to the class they've been involved with. -I'm glad to hear that you weren't though! :shades:

Of course this is from my mouth. I’m sure you had some bad ones.

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[QUOTE=Powerbait;414753]I know people who didn’t graduate in the top 50% of my class that got into Chapel Hill. Maybe it is just because I went to a small school, but they weren’t top 30 students.[/QUOTE]

At my school, anything less than a 4.5 wouldn’t get you in unless you were a minority and they still had to have over a 4.0 to have a shot. It’s all just about where you go to school, how you did in comparison to others, and how many people from your school apply. Extracurriculars factor in as well.

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[QUOTE=Niner National;414756]At my school, anything less than a 4.5 wouldn’t get you in unless you were a minority and they still had to have over a 4.0 to have a shot. It’s all just about where you go to school, how you did in comparison to others, and how many people from your school apply. Extracurriculars factor in as well.[/QUOTE]

Oh, I know. I just don’t like the idea that Chapel Hill’s admittance requirements are that stringent because I know that they aren’t. And if someone really wanted to get in, they could just go the CC route 1-2 years to get their grades up and still get in.

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I think a lot depends on your school. No one graduated from my high school with over a 5.0. I went to school in Charlotte btw, not some small town. I graduated 14 out of 387 and had a 3.5X unweighted GPA and a 4.37 weighted GPA. I think the highest was around a 4.8ish. I got accepted to every school I applied to, which included Chapel Hill.

I think the admissions standards depend on the school, the race, extracurricular activites, etc. SAT is also very important and cannot be discounted from the scenario. What I wish however is that more people who graduate at the top of their class would come to Charlotte. I was 14, my freshman roomate was 11 at our HS. His sister who graduated 3 years earlier was Valedictorian (and now has a PhD). I also know those who barely got into Charlotte that graduated with good grades because they put in the effort.

I had some of the lowest academic credentials entering law school, and I graduated top 1/3 of my class.

The truth of the matter is, schools view things differently. My collegiate academics were substantially worse than my HS academics because I worked 40-60 hours a week. I also owned my own business at 18, real estate at 19, and made more money than most people do 2-3 years out of college at 19. They took that in account when I entered law school.

All this debate about letting students in and what not, and who can get into Chapel Hill. I think we should let in qualified students, even if they are borderline. I honestly STILL believe that every student we accept can graduate. They might have to put in extra work, and they might have to try harder than their peers, but I firmly believe that if you can get into college, you can graduate.

Further, I firmly believe that an undergraduate degree, more than anything, is about making yourself do things you don’t want to do. It’s about making yourself put in the long hours and hard work. Most people I know who failed out, it was because they didn’t make themselves go to class, or didn’t make themselves study or do the homework, or didn’t make themselves go get help when they needed it. The resources are out there, and I’m sorry, but having to work is never an excuse either. These students CAN graduate.

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I am happy that only 50% graduate. We have a lot of really, really stupid students. It is refreshing to know that we are not handing out diplomas like candy.

I remember going to UNCW’s library, and in the restroom someone had written “UNCW Diplomas” over the toilet paper dispenser.

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[QUOTE=Ninercentral;414763]I think a lot depends on your school. No one graduated from my high school with over a 5.0. I went to school in Charlotte btw, not some small town. I graduated 14 out of 387 and had a 3.5X unweighted GPA and a 4.37 weighted GPA. I think the highest was around a 4.8ish. I got accepted to every school I applied to, which included Chapel Hill.

I think the admissions standards depend on the school, the race, extracurricular activites, etc. SAT is also very important and cannot be discounted from the scenario. What I wish however is that more people who graduate at the top of their class would come to Charlotte. I was 14, my freshman roomate was 11 at our HS. His sister who graduated 3 years earlier was Valedictorian (and now has a PhD). I also know those who barely got into Charlotte that graduated with good grades because they put in the effort.

I had some of the lowest academic credentials entering law school, and I graduated top 1/3 of my class.

The truth of the matter is, schools view things differently. My collegiate academics were substantially worse than my HS academics because I worked 40-60 hours a week. I also owned my own business at 18, real estate at 19, and made more money than most people do 2-3 years out of college at 19. They took that in account when I entered law school.

All this debate about letting students in and what not, and who can get into Chapel Hill. I think we should let in qualified students, even if they are borderline. I honestly STILL believe that every student we accept can graduate. They might have to put in extra work, and they might have to try harder than their peers, but I firmly believe that if you can get into college, you can graduate.

Further, I firmly believe that an undergraduate degree, more than anything, is about making yourself do things you don’t want to do. It’s about making yourself put in the long hours and hard work. Most people I know who failed out, it was because they didn’t make themselves go to class, or didn’t make themselves study or do the homework, or didn’t make themselves go get help when they needed it. The resources are out there, and I’m sorry, but having to work is never an excuse either. These students CAN graduate.[/QUOTE]

You’re right, for the most part, but I do think some people that get into Charlotte should not be in college (and I’m not talking about athletes).