CU’s first time bar-takers rank higher than other schools
The Office of Planning, Budget and Analysis released a campus-wide survey recently showing statistics concerning student engagement and CU’s curriculum success and failures in 2006 and some of 2007.
Officially, it is called the National Survey of Student Engagement.
The survey was administered by a team of surveyors at Indiana University, both online and on paper. The survey was given at over 550 universities nationwide, according to the Office of Planning, Budget and Analysis.
The survey gathered information from all three CU campuses, which includes Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs.
“Students are satisfied with CU-Boulder,” the study’s Web site said. “At least three-quarters of freshman and seniors reported they would attend CU-Boulder if they were starting college again, and rated their education as positive,”.
The Web site also reported that CU-Boulder students are actively engaged learners. Almost all of the seniors and freshman surveyed said they asked questions in class and worked on class projects during class, and made presentations.
Finally, the office highlighted that 75 percent to 83 percent of freshman through seniors reported that, “CU enhances their critical thinking and analysis skills and contributes toward gaining a broader education. More than half (59 percent to 82 percent) of all freshman and seniors reported that their coursework substantially emphasizes synthesizing and organizing ideas, applying theories or concepts to practical problems and analyzing the basic elements of an idea, experience or theory.”
The survey also looked at statistics on passage rates of the state bar exam, the licensure test for becoming a lawyer.
In July 2007, numbers were not yet released by the NSSE. However, Douglas Enzor, assistant to the dean of the School of Law, reported that 91 percent of CU law students who took the bar exam this past July passed. That number is higher than other universities.
In the survey CU is often compared to other similar American Association of Universities schools. Similar AAU institutions had an average passage rate of only 60 percent in 2006.
“We are very proud of this 90-plus percent,” said David H. Getches, dean of the School of Law. “I think this high number reflects the high quality of student that the program admits, the rigorous curriculum and coursework, and lots of studying on the student’s behalf.”
Other graduate programs that showed high rankings were the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, The Leeds School of Business, and the School of Education. All these showed high average marks and passage rates on licensure examinations.
For more detailed information, visit the NSSE Web site.
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Daniel Carter at daniel.carter@thecampuspress.com
