Analyzing applicant data for a public, predominantly undergraduate engineering programs to gain insight into diversifying recruitment

This paper reports the results of a detailed demographic analysis of applicants and enrollments to a predominantly undergraduate engineering program. The parameters used in the study were gender, ethnicity, standardized test scores, high school class rank and high school grade point average (GPA), high school, and socioeconomic conditions of the area from which the high school draws students. The primary goal of this study was to use applicant, acceptance, and enrollment data to develop strategies for increasing enrollment of underrepresented populations in the engineering program. The data used in the study represents over 4800 applicants to the engineering program from 2000 to 2007. Key fi ndings presented include differences in the application pool based on gender and ethnicity; contrasting acceptance rates across socioeconomic groups and the subsequent percentage of accepted students who chose to enroll in the engineering program; and the recruitment strategies developed based on the observations from the analysis. In addition, differences in national trends in recruitment of underrepresented populations at public, private, and U.S. service academies are discussed.