Luring Big Fish to Your Small Pond
An exploratory analysis for how non-flagship universities can attract top high school talent.
Intro:
October the first. A standard whiteboard in a dimly lit conference room. Across the wooden table, a team of four individuals look excitedly at the blank board, eager to contribute their thoughts. Through the window in the boardroom, a flag with the text “Small Pond University” sways in the breeze. Today, this college’s admission application is made available for thousands of high school seniors across the United States.
After a few hours, members of the team pause to admire their work. The whiteboard, once blank, is now covered in hasty scribbles of a myriad of different colors. The team has successfully outlined a strategy to market their university to these students.
Utilizing machine learning, the team can now appeal to a more diverse, stronger student population. They cannot wait to start advertising their university and enthusiastically start mailing letters.
The decision for which university to attend impacts not only the next four years of each student’s life, but his/her financial, social, and professional lifestyle. Each student deciphers between 3,982 schools based on suggested, but subjective, criteria to spend potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars for a degree that forms the foundation of his/her career (How Many Colleges…, 2021).
Students select from many factors to determine their optimal school — are they interested in a large vs. small school, a public vs. a private institution, a college in a college town, or a school in a large city? One of the largest factors in a decision is the school’s ranking. Every year, several news media outlets rank the top U.S. colleges and universities based on a “black box” criterion, with the U.S. News ranking having the most influence (The Best Colleges…, 2019).
Students, parents, educators, and businesses are all invested in universities’ rankings because it serves as a precursor for each school’s reputation.
Because only a handful of schools can be considered “top” schools, other universities that do not have the endowment, academic resources, or previous reputation must use creativity to attract top students. But some elements work in favor of the universities. In fact, researchers have proven that students have a “more holistic, transformational college experience” if top students select ordinary universities over their prestigiously ranked counterparts (Stanford, 2018).
This is an ongoing five part series: Read on to learn about the different chapters creating and analyzing this project!
Current:
Introduction: “Luring Big Fish to Your Small Pond”
Next:
Part One: Context and Problem Statement
Part Two: Reason for Models and Data Collection
Part Three: Machine Learning Solution 1: Logistic Regression
Part Four: Machine Learning Solution 2: K-Means Cluster Analysis
