Unrequited Love in Fall 2020

national student clearinghouse tree with roots

Our annual unrequited love report has been updated for fall 2020 using data from the National Student Clearinghouse. This report provides insight into where UMaine’s admitted, but non-matriculated undergraduate students enroll. This year’s report examines enrollment patterns for the 9,682 first-time students who enrolled elsewhere.  We also disaggregate the findings by residency (i.e., Maine residents vs. nonresidents).

New England Land Grant institutions, University of Southern Maine, and Husson University remain the top choices for UMaine’s admitted, non-matriculated students. Check out the report link for full results.

chart of schools

Fall 2020 vs. Fall 2019

Given the COVID-19 pandemic, and its likely impact on students’ choices, we compared fall 2020 with fall 2019 on some key statistics: the percentage of non-yielded applicants who are attending (a) another college (per the National Student Clearinghouse), (b) a community college, (c) a public institution, (d) an institution outside of their home state.  Some key highlights of the findings are:

  •  Compared to fall 2019, the percentage of admitted, non-matriculated undergraduate applicants who chose to attend another institution decreased by 3 percentage points in fall 2020 (85% in fall 2020, 88% in fall 2019).
  •  Of those students who did matriculate elsewhere in fall 2020, the percentage of students who chose to matriculate to a community college increased from 5.4% in fall 2019 to 7.6% in fall 2020.
  • We also saw an increase in the percentage of nonyields who chose to matriculate to a public institution (62.2% in fall 2020, 61.0% in fall 2019) and a slight decrease in students leaving their home state for college (48.6% in fall 2020, 50.2% in fall 2019).
    • This decrease was more pronounced in Maine residents, where we saw a 3.5 percentage-point increase in the percentage of Maine students staying in Maine for college (58.5% in fall 2020, 55.0% in fall 2019).

A list of destination schools for all UMaine’s admitted-but-nonmatriculating applicants is available upon request, as are lists for particular UMaine colleges, academic units, and majors. Please contact Lisa Applegate (lisa.applegate@maine.edu) for more information.