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Comparing New and Continuing Students

Responses of new CU-Boulder graduate students, those who started in fall of 2005, were overall quite similar to those of continuing graduate students. However, on a number of items and certain sections of items, the new graduate students responded more positively than did continuing graduate students. For a majority of these items, new master's students were slightly more positive than new doctoral students about various aspects of their academic experiences. Note that the findings described below are not shown in tables or graphs. The links on this page will display tables of results for all graduate students, irrespective of whether they are new or continuing, and are included here for comparison.

The more favorable ratings of new graduate students might be due to the fact that new students come to the university with positive expectations for their academic career, and they have had far fewer experiences in all areas of their CU-Boulder career than continuing students to either reinforce or refute these expectations. Both new master's and doctoral students expect to graduate sooner than continuing students: 75% of new versus only 50% of continuing master's students expect to graduate in two years or less; and 85% of new versus 65% of continuing doctoral students expect to graduate in five years or less.

• Program satisfaction: New graduate students rated all of the 13 items that deal with different aspects of program satisfaction consistently higher than did continuing graduate students. Average ratings for both new master's and doctoral students were generally .1 to .3 points higher (on a five-point scale) than they were for the continuing master's/doctoral students, with the differences between continuing and new students being slightly higher for master's students versus doctoral students. For 2 of the 13 items, an even higher difference was noted: New doctoral students were more likely (+.4) to rate the relationship between faculty and grad students more favorably than continuing doctoral students. In addition, new master's students were more likely (+.5) to rate the availability of area courses needed for program more positively than were continuing master's students. (Scale: 1 = poor… 5 = excellent)



• Quality of academic experiences: In addition, for the set of items regarding satisfaction with overall quality of general and academic experiences at CU-Boulder, the average satisfaction ratings for each of these items were rated consistently higher for new graduate master's AND doctoral students than for the continuing graduate students. The most notable difference was observed in the average satisfaction for quality of academic experience, for which new master's students' average rating was 3.9, versus 3.6 for continuing master's students. (Scale: 1 = poor… 5 = excellent)



• Attending CU-Boulder again: Both new master's (4.0) and doctoral (4.0) students would be more likely to select CU-Boulder again than would continuing master's (3.7) and doctoral students (3.7). Similarly, both new master's (4.1) and doctoral (4.2) students would be more likely to recommend this university to someone considering their respective programs than would continuing masters' (3.8) and doctoral (3.9) students. In fact, approximately three-quarters of both new master's (74%) and doctoral (77%) students would definitely or probably recommend CU-Boulder for their program, whereas about two-thirds (60% master's and 66% doctoral students) of continuing graduate students would. (Scale: 1 = definitely not… 5 = definitely)



• Teaching experience: In the area of teaching experience, new graduate students are much less likely than continuing graduate students to have held a teaching appointment in graduate school: 39% of new students versus 57% of continuing students have done so. As would be expected, both new and continuing doctoral students are much more likely to have held a teaching appointment than master's students. Seventy percent of continuing doctoral students and 57% of new doctoral students have done so, compared to only 32% of continuing and 25% of new master's students. About a third (36%) of new graduate students say they have assisted in a faculty member's course for their first semester, whereas about half (52%) of continuing graduate students have assisted one or more semesters in a faculty member's course. As expected, doctoral students are more likely to have done this: 64% of continuing doctoral students versus 29% of continuing master's students have assisted in a faculty member's class; and 55% of first-time doctoral students versus 22% of first-time master's students have done so.



• Campus services: As would be expected, for all but one of the 22 campus services items, new graduate students reported average usage ratings that were slightly less than those reported by continuing graduate students, anywhere from .1 to .3 points less per service. (The scale for these items is 1 = never, 2 = occasionally, 3 = frequently.) The exception was for on-campus computer facilities, which were used less by continuing doctoral students (-.3) than by new doctoral students. Consistent with the general pattern described above, however, the quality (Scale: 1 = poor… 5 = excellent) of each of these services was rated slightly higher, on average, by the new students than by continuing students. Three of the services items showed relatively large differences. New master's and doctoral students rated health care services higher than did continuing master's and doctoral students (+.4 and +.5, respectively). In addition, new doctoral students also rated both the quality of health insurance and career services .4 points higher than did continuing doctoral students.



• Academic skills:For the ratings of the importance of certain academic skill areas, both new and continuing students rated these about the same. (Scale: 1 = not important… 3 = very important) As expected, however, when it came to evaluating themselves on the degree to which their abilities were enhanced in these skill areas, they generally showed average ratings anywhere from .1 to .3 less than those of continuing students. (Scale: 1 = not at all… 4 = greatly) This was especially true for doctoral students. Last, it was notable that new and continuing master's students reported the same likelihood (4.8) that they would stay in their degree program until they achieved their degree objective; but new doctoral students reported being slightly less likely (4.5) to do so than continuing students (4.7). (Scale: 1 = uncertain… 5 = very likely)

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Last revision 09/28/06