Search | Directories | Reference Tools
UW Home > UWIN > Strategies and Initiatives 

Provost's Task Force on the Academic Progress of Undergraduates

Institutional Barriers to Timely Degree Completion

Provost's Task Force on Academic Progress
Barriers Group
July 25, 2003 Update

1) Various problems with prerequisite courses:

  • Access is difficult to some courses that are prerequisite to many programs (e.g.BIOL 180). These courses have become bottlenecks in the UW curriculum.
  • Some programs (particularly professional programs) require extensive prerequisites
  • Sequencing of pre-requisites-many students cannot complete prerequisites prior to application deadlines. Students change their minds, but our program plans are structured as though they don't.
  • the combination of numerous prerequisites with fixed departmental application deadlines reduces flexibility for students who change their mind or discover later what they want to do
  • Are there other bottleneck courses hiding within majors?
  • For which fields are bottlenecks critical? How long is the delay if a student can't get a specific bottleneck course?
  • Need institutional management of bottlenecks
    Data to collect: Create a short list of worst bottleneck courses, length of delays (survey advisors); #'s of students denied for each course (not reliable b/c will undercount); % of class filled at various dates, closing date for each class. May Dolan in Data Services should be able to help.

2) Limited space in popular majors
Data to collect: # of applicants, #'s admitted, #'s enrolled for all competitive/restricted majors, and # enrolled for all open majors, for at least past year. Example:

College of Engineering Application/Enrollment Summary

3) Unknown capacity for majors on Seattle campus
Data to collect: ask each department for maximum capacity, optimum capacity in program.

4) Unknown student interest/intention to pursue various majors. Makes institutional planning difficult.

5) Inconsistent information for students

  • Lack of uniform presentation of departmental information
  • Open majors, restricted majors, competitive majors makes major declaration confusing
  • Different departmental application procedures and deadlines
  • Departmental passivity: students have to come to us for information

6) AP and Running Start programs don't seem to be functioning as expected.

  • Test scores aren't available early in SUM when students begin to register.
  • Students repeat many AP credits, repeat crucial RS credits related to major
  • RS students see selves as 1st quarter freshmen with 4+ years to go
  • Data to collect: Can Academic Records say how many graduating students had AP credit deleted?

7) Special problems for transfer students

  • lack of access to accurate, timely information
  • some programs have prerequisites not available at the CC's
  • some CC programs offer courses that are not acceptable to UW faculty
  • over-enrollment may make it difficult to transfer for the correct quarter to begin a program or a prerequisite series
  • international transfers often bring in quite a bit of credit that won't apply to their programs here.
  • Data to collect: Sherry Savoya in Admissions is reporting on UW programs with prerequisites unavailable at the CC's. Dept. advisors can identify cases where CC courses do not meet with UW faculty approval.