General Summary for an Audience

Our study on the driving factors behind a student's decision to come to Kalamazoo College provided some solid results that can potentially be used by the College's office of admissions in order to attract more potential students. The variables that proved the most influential in a student's decision to come to K were it's high admission rates into graduate/professional school, it's 12:1 student to faculty ratio, and its high academic reputation. Their mean values on a scale of 1-10 (1 being not important and 10 being very important) were as follows: 7.44, 7.62 , 7.91. Interestingly enough, all of these top variables revolve around academic excellence and a professional career. The variables studied with the least importance on a student's decision to come to Kalamazoo College were it's small student body, close proximity to Western Michigan University, and it's close proximity to the cities of Kalamazoo and Portage. Their mean values on a scale of 1-10 (1 being not important and 10 being very important) were as follows: 5.98, 4,59, 4.41. This goes to show that the majority of students come to K with the sole intention of a superior education, not a superior social life. The average family income of a student at Kalamazoo College was $147,000. This was proven to be statistically different from the average family income of a United States family at $45,000.
One of the interesting things we found had to deal with the distance from Kalamazoo College that the average students is from. The smallest percentage of students were within 0-50 miles with only 13.2%, the second largest came from 300-up miles, with 17.9% students, the third largest percentage came from 150-300 miles with 29.3% and the largest percentage came from 50-150 miles with 39.6%. We found this interesting because usually colleges get a large influx of students that reside close to the college (0-50 miles), but it seems that Kalamazoo College receives most of its students from farther areas.
All in all, in order for a Kalamazoo College to draw in potential students, instead of losing them to its much larger public university counterparts, they need to stress the variables that proved to be most important in a students decision to come to K and avoid stressing the variables that those student's viewed as unimportant. . Further studies can build off of this one find even more influential variables in a student's decision to come to Kalamazoo College.