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NSSE 2013: Comparison Institutions for St. Olaf Reports Office of Institutional Research and Evaluation November 2013

When institutions administer the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), they receive reports which compare their own students’ responses with the responses of students at other institutions that administered NSSE in the same year. In 2013, St. Olaf elected to receive its reports with three different comparison groups:

 A “peer group” of participating institutions selected according to criteria we established  All participating institutions in the same Carnegie classification as St. Olaf  All participating institutions in the

This document provides summary information about these three comparison groups, using the labels that appear in our various reports from NSSE.

“Peer Group” – Selective Baccalaureate/Arts & Sciences institutions

In 2013, this group consisted of 23 participating institutions with the same Carnegie classification as St. Olaf (“Baccalaureate/Arts and Sciences” – see below for details) with a Barron’s selectivity rating of “Highly competitive or more.” These institutions included the following:

Agnes Scott College (Decatur, GA) (Mount Berry, GA) (Danville, KY) (Bar Harbor, ME) (Colorado Springs, CO) (Greenville, SC) Gustavus Adolphus College (Saint Peter, MN) (Claremont, CA) (Conway, AR) (Holland, MI) (Bloomington, IL) (Kalamazoo, MI) (Appleton, WI) New College of Florida (Sarasota, FL) (Claremont, CA) (Claremont, CA) Sewanee: The University of the South (Sewanee, TN) (Saratoga Springs, NY) St. Mary's College of Maryland (Saint Mary's City, MD) (Poughkeepsie, NY) Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL) Wheaton College (Norton, MA) Wofford College (Spartanburg, SC)

“Carnegie Class” -- All participating Baccalaureate/Arts & Sciences institutions

This group consisted of 80 institutions of the same institutional type as St. Olaf, according to the Carnegie classification framework. St. Olaf is classified as a “Baccalaureate/Arts & Sciences” institution, sharing the following characteristics with the other schools in that same classification:

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 Bachelor's degrees account for at least half of all undergraduate degrees  At least half of the bachelor's degree majors were in arts and sciences fields  Fewer than 50 master's degrees were awarded in 2008-09 (with a few exceptions)

The 80 Baccalaureate/Arts & Sciences institutions that administered NSSE in 2013 included all the institutions listed in the above self-selected “Peer Group” and other institutions such as College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University, Concordia College (Moorhead), Lewis and Clark College, , , Susquehanna College, and .

“NSSE 2013” – All participating US institutions

This group consisted of all 567 institutions across the US that administered NSSE in Spring 2013 (see the complete list at http://nsse.iub.edu/pdf/nsse2013_list.pdf). NSSE was completed by more than 335,000 US first-years and seniors, and as the table below shows, the participating institutions are fairly representative of US higher education as a whole, particularly with respect to characteristics shared by St. Olaf (highlighted).

Participating NSSE All Bachelor’s-Granting Institutions US Institutions Carnegie classification Research Universities (all levels of research activity) 20% 17% Master’s Colleges and Universities (all sizes) 45% 44% Baccalaureate Colleges – Arts & Sciences 15% 16% Baccalaureate Colleges – Diverse Fields 19% 23% Control Public 39% 34% Private 61% 66% Enrollment Up to 2499 44% 51% 2500 - 4999 19% 18% 5000 - 9999 17% 14% 10,000 or more 20% 16% Region New England 8% 8% Mid East 16% 18% Great Lakes 16% 15% Plains 13% 10% Southeast 25% 25% Southwest 11% 7% Rocky Mountains 3% 4% Far West 8% 11% Outlying Areas 1% 2% Locale City 44% 46% Suburb 21% 23% Town 25% 21% Rural area 10% 10%