College Research: Understanding College/Class Profile Information

When you visit a college's profile page, you are going to find a lot of information. in this article, let's go over some of the information that you might find confusing. do not ignore any information that you don't understand. It could be a really important piece of information, so take the time to understand what that information is.

First, let's talk about academic calendar. You will find information about a semester and quarter on a school profile page. In the semester system, the two academic terms every year are the fall semester and the spring semester. Each term lasts 15 weeks.
In the quarter system, the three academic terms every year are fall, winter, and spring.

Each of those terms lasts ten weeks. In both systems, you will be studying for 30 weeks every year, but they are both very different. The shorter quarter system means your classes finish quickly, and you will have the opportunity to take many classes. The longer duration of the semester system means that your classes will delve deeper to explore a certain subject.

This information is very important. During your self-assessment stage, you must have thought about how you like to learn. Do you like to take your time to explore a subject? Or do prefer moving quickly from one topic to another? Based on that, you might be better suited for one calendar type over another.

Another information you will find is the retention rate. Retention rates show what percentage of first-year students return to the university for the second year of study. It means, in simpler words, the drop-out rate.

This is a criterion to measure how students like the college and how successful they usually are. A student may leave the college for a good reason but usually, when many students leave a college within a year, it is for a bad reason.

Maybe their scores are not good or maybe they don't like the college. These reasons are not always the college's fault, but the fact is high retention rate reflect on the support the college offers to its students to keep them coming back. When you find a college with high retention rate, you can be sure that the college is doing a good job in supporting its students.

Another rate that you will come across is the graduation rate. the reasons why this rate is so important is because of two reasons. First, the goal of going to a college is to get a degree. So how many students achieve that goal in a particular college? Second reason is cost related. If it takes longer to graduate from a college, the cost of education is going to be higher. If the criteria of the cost is an important factor for you, then you should definitely look into the graduation rates.

You will also find information about diversity. Two main components of diversity are the ethnicity and geographical origins of the students. This includes how many international students are at that college.

Take your time to look through all of the information you can find and keep on adding what you want to your school list.

There are two different words accepted and enrolled students. Admitted students is another word that means accepted students. Enrolled is the number of accepted students who chose to attend that university.

As you continue researching, you'll find information on scores required for acceptance. Sometimes you will see GPA graphs or other times you will find average GPA information. You will have to consider how your GPA compares to other students.

Similarly, you will find information about test scores. The colleges usually provide average or mid-range test scores. Since this is the middle 50% of the scores accepted, it means 25% of the scores are above that number and 25 % of the scores are below that number. This way you can calculate where your score stands.

If a college site provides information of the minimum score required, you should make sure that you score around the average score and not the minimum as it ensures better chances of acceptance.

Here we have talked about a few types of the information you will find on a school profile site. You will come across a lot more information when you actually do your research. Some of this information will be important and some will not be. It is up to you to decide what information is important to you and which information is not important to you.

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