STAT Project

Admissions Data Project Details

The Problem

Statement of the Problem: Universities and colleges need to understand their students. One of the many questions that University administrators want to know is which students will perform best in their University. The University wants to admit students who are expected to perform well. They want to make sure that students who are admitted have some reason to believe that they will do well in their school. The MIDWEST SCHOLASTIC DATA has been collected to help administrators answer this question. However, there are many other questions that could be posed and answered based on this data. Some of these may also be of great interest to the administration.

Since you work in the Department of Education and are a trained statistician, your supervisor has asked that you assist the Administration in exploring the many interesting questions that can be raised in examining this data.

The Data

Your data, The MIDWEST SCHOLASTIC DATA file, contains a number of variables. The database contains information on all undergraduate students at the University of West Erlham County (UWEC). Thirteen variables are considered for each student. The variables are: sex (SEX), high school percentile (HSP), cumulative college grade point average (GPA), age (AGE), total college credits earned (CREDITS), classification (CLASS), school/college enrollment (COLLEGE), primary major (MAJOR), out-of-state or local residency, a variable used to calculate tuition cost (RESIDENCY), admission type (TYPE), ACT English score (ENGLISH), ACT Math score (MATH), and ACT composition (writing) score (COMP). Your instructor will make this data available to you through his/her Blackboard Course Site.

Part B: Describe the Variables

Describe each of the thirteen variables. Provide an appropriate graph of each variable. Be sure to compute the numerical values and present them. Make comments specific to your data and variables--writing general statements about education or gender differences or other things NOT specific to your data and findings is not acceptable. A good writeup would include essential information for each variable. Some examples are discussing what is being measured; whether this data is provided when a student applies for entry into the school; how and why this information might help one predict future college success. Your understanding of the variables will be assessed and your grade assigned accordingly. If you are having trouble, go to the Dolciani Math Center on the 7th floor of the library for help.This part of your project should be 6-10 pages in length with appropriate graphs and tables.

For part B, please use our data file, found under course materials and project work folder here on BB. Import the data on statcrunch, and perform basic descriptive analysis for EACH VARIABLE OF THE DATA. 

So each of the 13 variables in your data set, you need to have 1 appropriate graph ( bar graph, histogram, pie chart ... whatever you see fit considering the type of the data), and a 1 paragraph (3 -5 sentences) describing how you plan on using this particular variable to answer these questions. 

1. what is being measured and its unit of measurement. 

2. how this variable can be used to predict future college success/answer questions of interest for the admin office.