Predicting College Enrollment of Graduating High School Seniors: How Accurate Is Self-Report?

Abstract

Although many school counselors use self-report graduation surveys to collect data about their program and to track students after graduation, there is a dearth of research examining the survey results’ accuracy. The purpose of this study was to explore the accuracy of high school seniors’ self-report of intended college enrollment. Overall, results suggest that student self-report is a good indicator of fall college enrollment and certain variables increase the accuracy of students’ self-report. Specifically, having a higher socioeconomic status, higher grade point average, acceptances from a greater number of colleges, and a higher college entrance exam score, and enrolling in a public (vs. private) college all increased the probability of an accurate self-report. We discuss implications for school counseling practice and future research.

Keywords

college access college enrollment graduation survey high school counseling self-report

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