Every year since 1979 the Office of Institutional Research has surveyed recent graduates. This survey is one of the only outcome measures the university has for our educational process. While the questionnaire focuses primarily on the academic experiences of graduates, it also allows them to report their current activities. During the past twenty years, the survey results have yielded much valuable information pertinent to both graduates experience at the University of Connecticut and their post-graduate activities.

The responses from the 1997 survey have been tabulated and summarized in the following report and tables. Part I is a summary of respondents demographic and general information. Part II contains evaluations of the graduates academic experiences at UConn. Part III summarizes their post graduate activities.

In September 1997, graduates who received bachelor's degrees in May 1997 were sent a questionnaire concerning their experience at the University of Connecticut and their post graduate activities. Follow-up mailings were also mailed to non-responding graduates. Because of the extra mailing, 1997 graduates had more than five months to respond.

In 1997, bachelor's degrees were awarded to 2,734 students. The initial request for information was by means of a survey form. A follow-up letter was sent to those who did not respond by two months from the initial survey mailing. As a result, 1,205 alumni returned a completed questionnaire, for a total response rate of 44%. Although the response rate has been consistently low, the stability of trends in the responses across the last twenty years gives some assurance that, at least, response bias has been consistent across the years. On the other hand, 44% is significantly higher than last years response rate of 40%, reflecting a redesigned instrument and the offering of a raffle of basketball tickets as an incentive for returning the survey.

Of the 1,205 respondents to the survey, 56% were female, as compared to 52% of all graduates. Women have responded better than men in all previous alumni surveys.

With regard to ethnicity, the overwhelming majority of respondents to the survey were white (88%), as were the majority of all graduates of the 1995 class (86%). As for other ethnic groups, Asian-Pacific (5%) and Hispanic (4%) respondents were roughly the same percent as in the graduating class, but 3% of black graduates responded to the survey less often.

The respondents did not differ from the graduating class in age, at least as measured in the broad categories used in the survey. Three quarters of the alumni, and respondents, are 21 to 24 years old. Two percent of both groups were over 50 years of age.

The percentage of respondents from the different schools and colleges within UConn was also roughly comparable to their percentage of the graduating class.

In summary, this sample is generally representative of the graduating class except in that it slightly over-represents women and slightly under-represents African-American alumni. (See Appendix 1 for additional details on the demographics of the respondents.)

In order to obtain some indication of the reasons for attending the University, the graduates were given a list of nine factors from which they could designate the primary reason for attending UConn. When asked to recall why they originally selected the University of Connecticut, the percent of respondents who choose UConn for its educational programs continues to surpass the number who choose UConn for "cost-tuition."

This table shows that, since 1991, increasing numbers of entering students have been attracted to UConn because of its educational programs. On the other hand, since the late 1980s, a declining percent of entering students have been attracted to UConn for solely economic reasons. This may reflect the rising cost of higher education.

Reasons for attending UConn vary importantly by school. Pluralities of graduates of the Allied Health, General Studies and Pharmacy said they chose UConn because of these programs. Engineering and Arts and Sciences graduates were the most sensitive to costs and tuition as reasons for coming to UConn.

Since 1995 we have asked graduates about the importance to them of a range of twenty specific potential benefits of collegiate education, and whether they believed that Uconn had provided each of these benefits. The results reveal that students would have liked their collegiate experience to provide more of all the mentioned types of benefits. The results below aggregate the responses of the 1995, 1996 and 1997 surveys.

Clearly, students are relatively satisfied with their exposure to the arts, natural sciences, social sciences, and history in the curriculum, but are relatively dissatisfied with their acquisition of computer skills, creative thinking, values clarification, managerial skills and general job readiness.

As one might expect, the chart below shows a roughly inverse relationship between a schools ability to provide the for the "softer" goals  creativity, values clarification, leadership, self understanding  and the "harder" goals  job skills, computer experience, and scientific knowledge. Engineering and Pharmacy graduates are content that they received scientific, technical and job-related training, but are relatively dissatisfied with the softer goals. Conversely, Fine Arts and Family Studies graduates feel they had good experience with the softer goals, but poorer expsoure to computer, scientific or job skills.

After respondents are asked why they remember coming to UConn, they are asked why they now believe they should have come to UConn. While less than a third of students remember attending UConn initially because of the educational programs available here, in retrospect, two of three graduates say they should have attended UConn because of the educational programs.

Most graduates would also recommend the University of Connecticut to others planning to attend college (89%). Recommending UConn varied from school to school. Pharmacy was a clear outlier, perhaps because that school was in the process of replacing its traditional bachelors program with a combined BS/Pharm.D program.

Enthusiasm about referring friends to UConn declined slightly in the 80s, and has been increasing again since 1993. This may reflect trends in graduates' experiences of the labor market, cultural trends among young people, or trends at the University itself. The chart below, or instance, shows that the dip in recommendations from 1989 to 1993 paralleled a dip in the job prospects for graduates, and the rise since then has paralleled a rise in job prospects.

The following tables indicate how the graduates of 1997 evaluated specific components of their academic experience at the University of Connecticut. Students responded with answers from 1 (Extremely Dissatisfied) to 7 (Extremely Satisfied).

Graduates are generally highly satisfied with their academic experiences, in particular with the department and school within which they majored; their highest marks go to the quality of instruction and access to instructors in their major. On the other hand, as has been true since the beginning of this survey eighteen years ago, students expressed their greatest dissatisfaction with the quality of freshmen advising. Graduates were also relatively dissatisfied with the quality of upperclass advising, though not as dramatically.

The Chart below shows that respondents perceived problems with advising are particularly acute in Nursing, Family Studies and Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Respondents were generally satisfied with how well their programs prepared them for the job market. However, mean scores varied substantially by school. Respondents in the health related fields, Allied Health, Pharmacy and Nursing, reported the highest levels of satisfaction with their ability to find positions in their fields. Liberal Arts and Sciences graduates generally report the lowest satisfaction with career preparation. (See Appendix 2 for additional details on responses to questions on academic experiences at UConn.)

The 1997 Recent Alumni Survey was sent in Fall 1997 to alumni who graduated in May 1997. Therefore, while Part III tables focuses on employment and graduate school, the survey may be too soon after graduation for some students to gauge their success or their real future intentions in these areas.

The percent of alumni respondents who reported full-time employment was up 1% from 1996, to 71%. Of those who were not employed full-time, 46% were in graduate school full-time, and 40% intended to continue their studies. Only 4% of respondents reported not having any employment, and not being in a graduate program.

Employment and graduate school vary significantly between the different schools' alumni. Education was the only school where the majority of the graduates went immediately into graduate work. Fine Arts and Nursing appear to have large minorities of alumni who are pursuing part-time employment and education. Allied Health, Engineering, Business and Pharmacy graduates almost all immediately enter full-time employment in their fields.

Chart 5 presents how fully or partly employed graduates perceived their UConn degrees and their current employment. In keeping with the positive evaluations of their academic experience at the University, three quarters of the graduates (75%) considered UConn degrees helpful when applying for jobs. About 73% of them were satisfied with their current positions, and 76% said their positions were career-related. Between 1989 and 1991 the percent of alumni who felt their positions were career-related fell from a consistent 80% to around 70%, reflecting trends in the job market. The percent in career-related positions, and the percent satisfied with their positions and with UConn's help in getting a position, has been increasing since 1992. Health-related graduates are especially satisfied, since they are more likely to be employed, and those who are fully employed are almost all in their fields.

The type of employer where graduates found jobs followed previous survey patterns. Business (45%) again was the number one employer in 1997, followed by health related employers.

"Business" has been declining slightly as an employer over the last fifteen years, while non-profits and other categories have increased.

As in all prior studies, the majority of 1997 graduates chose jobs in Connecticut (76%). Massachusetts (7%) and New York (6%) were the second and third most popular work locations reported by responding graduates.

Immediate satisfaction with a UConn education appears to be quite sensitive to job market conditions for graduates. Looking past these extrinsic sources of variation in the alumni attittudes, it is clear there are many intrinsic factors as well driving satisfaction, and hopefully post-collegiate success. Schools vary relatively dramatically in perception of their advising, job training, and the adequacy of the skills they provide their students. Although we may never be able to make a Fine Arts student entirely happy with the difficult career ahead of them, we may be able to address the Engineers desire for more encouragement of creativity, leadership skills and values clarification.

Recent Alumni Survey data are virtually the only resource of information about UConn's graduates and their opinions on various aspects of the University. We would be happy to extend our analyses upon request. Besides completing the questionnaire, many respondents also anonymously volunteered extensive comments on various aspects of the University life. These comments are included in Appendix 3.