Best Practices in Surveying Students Accepted into the College study presents data and commentary from 36 colleges and universities about how they interview students accepted into the college, both those that attend and those that decline. The study helps its readers to answer questions such as: how many interviews are conducted and through what means?  What is the cooperation rate? Are incentives offered? Which college departments are most involved in the research? What do colleges learn from such research? Who uses the data and with what impact.

 Just a few of the report’s many findings are that:

 Private colleges were more aggressive than public ones, interviewing a mean of 65.8% of admitted students who chose to attend the college; 50.38% was the corresponding figure for public colleges.

Only 13.33% of the interviews were conducted in-person. 

Most spending on consultants for admitted students’ research was by 4-year colleges.

 Research universities in the sample interviewed 37% of those the university approached that were accepted but chose not to attend the university