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Identifying distinctive groups in a college applicant pool

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Abstract

In a time when most post-secondary educational institutions must distribute limited resources more efficiently, segmentation analysis affords a way to direct planning to yield strategic benefits. The Automatic Interaction Detector is recommended to the institutional research community as an analytical tool for effectively identifying distinctive subgroups within an educational market. In this application, AID is used to segment the Boston College applicant pool according to subgroups' relative probabilities of enrolling. The findings illustrate that AID can make a useful contribution to market research and that the technique has broader applicability—to other student groups and to other educational policy questions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Records and Financial Aid, Boston College, USA

    Robert Lay (Director of Enrollment Management Research) & John Maguire (Dean of Admissions)

  2. Consortium on Financing Higher Education, Cambridge, Massachusetts

    Larry Litten (Associate Director)

Authors
  1. Robert Lay
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  2. John Maguire
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  3. Larry Litten
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Lay, R., Maguire, J. & Litten, L. Identifying distinctive groups in a college applicant pool. Res High Educ 16, 195–208 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00973583

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00973583

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