Freshman survey shows USU as a first choice
While in their first year at Utah State University, 86 percent of the freshmen ranked USU their first choice of universities to attend, according to 2000 CIRP Survey: College Choices and Reasons for Attending College.
Out of the 86 percent, 48.5 percent of the freshmen applied to no other university. This could be due to the fact that 66.1 percent of the freshmen surveyed live within a 100 miles of campus, said Joan Kleinke, assistant to the dean for University Assessment.
Kleinke and Grayson Osborne, coordinator in University Assessment, organized the survey and its resulting data.
“There are many variables in this survey that show that USU freshmen students are very similar to their peers nationwide,” Osborne said. “But the data in this survey is presented to provide evidence of the relative uniqueness of our freshmen class.”
An aspect of USU’s uniqueness remarkably evident from the study is religiosity, Osborne said. The survey revealed that 18.4 percent of freshmen said religion attracted them to attending USU compared with 3.7 percent at comparable universities and 2.7 percent over all public universities.
The study showed substantially more women considered religion to be an important factor.
Ninety percent of USU freshmen said they were of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints religious preference, compared to 8.3 percent at comparable universities and 2.8 percent at all public universities.
“To those outside of Utah, the higher concentration of the LDS faith at USU is extremely surprising for a public university,” Osborne said.
Osborne said the religion issue is like an umbrella.
“Many other results make sense under the umbrella of religious preference,” he said.
For example, the CIRP study showed that USU reported a much higher level of spirituality, with a sex difference favoring women that is not seen in the results of the other universities, according to the survey.
There were 1,466 first-time, full-time freshman surveyed during the survival program, representing 60.3 percent of the class entering USU in fall of 2000. The CIRP study has been conducted annually for the last five years and has been conducted nationally for much longer, Kleinke said.
Patricia Terrell, vice president of Student Services said the CIRP survey is a study to determine who the freshmen are, where they come from, why they come to USU and what their hopes, values and aspirations are.
Terrell said, “The study is a touchstone of each incoming class. It helps us to understand who our students are and how they can be supported.”
For a complete analysis of this study and other studies, see the University Assessment Web site at www.usu.edu/~asmnt/