A Comparative Analysis of Underrepresented Engineering Applicants Admission Practices and their Academic Performance at the University of Illinois at Chicago

Universities have been challenged with the task of creating admission standards to more fairly access underrepresented applicants. This paper illustrates a quantitative framework to measure and classify the underrepresentation level of feeder high schools to the College of Engineering (COE) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). It further proposes how such a framework may support the admission decisions. Our study is limited to students who were admitted to UIC as first time freshman. The data set includes the records of more than 3,000 students who entered the University as freshman between 2008 and 2013. Each student in the data set was assigned an Under Representation Score (URS), which was calculated based on the attributes of each student’s high school. Our analysis included extensive data mining, where we chronologically traced each student’s academic performance over their first four semesters. In addition to standard performance indices, such as retention and dropout rates, we also defined new performance indices that were fundamental in measuring the academic performance of underrepresented students. Our analysis proposed that by incorporating URS to the admission criteria, the COE might improve admission the process for underrepresented applicants. We also showed that, compared to the rest of the students, underrepresented students have higher dropout rates in their first three semesters. However, those underrepresented students who stay and finish their first three semesters, perform equally well, if not better, than the rest of the students. Based on this analysis, we have suggested a revised set of admission criteria. We have also underlined the importance of monitoring and special advising systems for underrepresented students.