as attached

Clayton State University

BUSA 5200 - Decision Making under Uncertainty Project

Case 8-1: Harrigan University Admissions

Harrigan University is a liberal arts university in the Mid-west that attempts to attract the highest-

quality students, especially from its region of the country. It has gathered data on 178 applicants

who were accepted by Harrigan (a random sample from all acceptable applicants over the past

several years). The data are in the file C08_01.xlsx. The variables are as follows:

• Accepted: whether the applicant accepts Harrigan’s offer to enroll

• MainRival: whether the applicant enrolls at Harrigan’s main rival university

• HSClubs: number of high school clubs applicant served as an officer

• HSSports: number of varsity letters applicant earned

• HSGPA: applicant’s high school GPA

• HSPctile: applicant’s percentile (in terms of GPA) in his or her graduating class

• HSSize: number of students in applicant’s graduating class

• SAT: applicant’s combined SAT score

• Combined Score: a combined score for the applicant used by Harrigan to rank applicants

The derivation of the combined score is a closely kept secret by Harrigan, but it is basically a

weighted average of the various components of high school performance and SAT. Harrigan is

concerned that it is not getting enough of the best students, and worse yet, that many of these best

stu-dents are going to Harrigan’s main rival. Solve the following problems and then, based on your

analysis, comment on whether Harrigan appears to have a legitimate concern.

1. Calculate a 95% confidence interval for the proportion of all acceptable applicants who

accept Harrigan’s invitation to enroll. Do the same for all acceptable applicants with a

combined score less than 330, with a combined score between 330 and 375, and then with

a combined score greater than 375. (Note that 330 and 375 are approximately the first and

third quartiles of the Combined Score variable.)

2. Calculate a 95% confidence interval for the proportion of all acceptable students with a

combined score less than the median (356) who choose Harrigan’s rival over Harrigan. Do

the same for those with a combined score greater than the median.

3. Calculate 95% confidence intervals for the mean combined score, the mean high school

GPA, and the mean SAT score of all acceptable students who accept Harrigan’s invitation

to enroll. Do the same for all acceptable students who choose to enroll elsewhere. Then

calculate 95% confidence intervals for the differences between these means, where each

difference is a mean for students enrolling at Harrigan minus the similar mean for students

enrolling elsewhere.

4. Harrigan is interested (as are most schools) in getting students who are involved in

extracurricular activities (clubs and sports). Does it appear to be doing so? Calculate a 95%

confidence interval for the proportion of all students who decide to enroll at Harrigan who

have been officers of at least two clubs. Calculate a similar confidence interval for those

who have earned at least four varsity letters in sports.

5. The combined score Harrigan calculates for each student gives some advantage to students

who rank highly in a large high school relative to those who rank highly in a small high

school. Therefore, Harrigan wonders whether it is relatively more successful in attracting

students from large high schools than from small high schools. Calculate one or more

confidence intervals for relevant parameters to shed some light on this issue.