|
|
| SOPHAS and ASPH Data Stats |
| SOPHAS and ASPH Data Stats |
In September 2007, SOPHAS closed out its first cycle of applicants, and ASPH member schools of public health had the opportunity to analyze national applicant data from the 22 participating schools. For at least two decades, ASPH has collected basic applicant information from member schools, but this data disproportionately counted applicants applying to multiple schools and lacked many details that are now collected through SOPHAS.
Since the inception of SOPHAS, the SOPHAS committee has been eagerly anticipating the ability to analyze demographic, academic and professional backgrounds of the national applicant pool. The following are partial results from the SOPHAS cycle one analysis.
|
|
|
| |
Quick facts and figures:
Total SOPHAS Applicants: 6,618
U.S. Citizens = 75%
International Citizens = 25%
Men = 29%
Women = 71%
Underrepresented minorities = 20%
Average number of schools applied to by SOPHAS applicants: 2.18
Matriculation figures (based on applicants applying to spring/fall 2007 programs):
- 80% of applicants were accepted by at least one SOPHAS school
- 45% matriculated to a SOPHAS school
- 23% were offered admission but did not enroll in a SOPHAS school
- 6% post-poned enrollment
- 3% were not reviewed due to incomplete application materials or early withdrawals from the process
|
|
|
Surprises and challenges from the SOPHAS data
One particular piece of data that seemed to surprise many of the committee members was the fact that most of the applicants had previously attended other institutions with public health on campus. Out of the top twenty (20) feeder schools:
• Fourteen (14) were universities with schools of public health,
• Four (4) were universities with public health programs
• Two (2) had no public health schools or programs.
This was also fairly consistent whether the feeder schools that were analyzed were undergraduate, graduate, or post-bac programs.
What this seems to indicate is that there is a lot more ASPH and the schools can be doing nationally to reach out to students attending a college or university without formal programs in public health.
According to the Institute of Medicine , while there has been an increasing effort to promote public health at the undergraduate level, schools of public health are still not effectively reaching undergraduate students in the over 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States that do not have a CEPH accredited school of public health.
Other challenges
Not surprisingly, women made up 71% of the entire SOPHAS applicant pool. Of international applicants were 43% men and 57% were women. Of U.S. applicants, 25% were men and 75% were women. This is a trend that has been continuing over the past two decades and is in part a reflection on an overall trend in the higher education in the U.S. While it is debatable whether this is disadvantageous for the field in general, what it does demonstrate is that there is a significant proportion of the U.S. population (i.e. men) that is not applying to schools of public health.
Though we have no comparative data, the average age of an applicant is 28 years, which many schools would suspect is decreasing. The median age was 26 and the range went from 18 years to 69 years. These figures were relatively consistent between U.S. and international applicants. In future years, the SOPHAS data will allow the schools to identify whether this trend continues or flattens out. Being able to identify the average age of an applicants is important because it will allow schools and ASPH to make sure recruiting efforts and methods are age-appropriate. (see article on web-based recruiting tools)
The data also highlighted the fact that some program areas are attracting fewer applicants than others. In future years, the national data will allow the schools to more effectively identify whether these fluctuations are periodic or whether they are trends. As trends are identified, the SOPHAS schools will have the ability to analyze the academic and professional backgrounds of applicants in their programmatic area, and to enhance their recruiting efforts as are appropriate.
The diversity of applicants in terms of citizenship and ethnicity was robust but this is most likely not a surprise to most schools.
| |
|
|
| |
National % |
SOPHAS Applicant Pool |
| |
White |
53% |
59% |
| |
Hispanic |
7% |
5% |
| |
Black |
14% |
14% |
| |
Asian |
15% |
12% |
| |
Native American or Alaskan |
1% |
1% |
| |
Native Hawaiian/Pac. Islander/Other/Mixed Race |
11% |
9% |
| |
|
|
|
International applicants made up of 25% of the SOPHAS applicant pool. These applicants were citizens of 115 different countries. The ten countries with the most applicants were: India , China , Canada , Nigeria , Taiwan , Koreas , Japan , Pakistan , Ghana , and Kenya .
As the second cycle of SOPHAS starts to wrap up, the SOPHAS will start to do trend analysis. One trend item already taking shape is the 16% increase of applicants interested in public health schools compared to last year.
In the next newsletter, we will discuss current and new initiatives in public health outreach based on the data received. |
| |
|
