12th Grade Survey MESA Exit Survey

The UC Davis MESA center performed data collection for high school seniors graduating on Spring 2024. This data report summarizes the seniors extracurricular and MESA involvement. It also assesses seniors’ college preparedness level and interest in advancing to community college.

According to our senior survey data, we have 64 seniors from our MESA program graduating high school this year in the following schools:

High School Name # of seniors
C.K. McClatchy HS 8
Franklin HS 11
Grant Union HS 3
John F. Kennedy HS 10
Pleasant Grove HS 9
Rio Linda HS 5
River City HS 12
West Campus HS 6

Years involved with MESA

The table below shows how long our seniors were involved in MESA by the end of their high school.

Years in MESA # of students
1 year 17
2 years 14
3 years 17
4 years 6
5 years 3
6 years 7

The average of our graduating seniors participated in MESA for 2.8 years before exiting our program.

MESA involvement during middle school

Below are the tally of the answers to the survey question “Were you involved in MESA in middle/Junior high?”

Per the above graph, 42 of our seniors were not involved in MESA during middle school. In other words, only 34.4% of seniors were involved in MESA during middle school.

Leadership positions

Out of our seniors, 22 (or 34.4%) held a leadership position in their MESA club/class throughout their period of involvement.

Those 22 seniors held these positions throughout their MESA career; some held more than one position throughout their careers.

Position Count
No position held 42
Historian 1
Media Representative 2
President 6
Secretary 6
Team Captain 1
Treasurer 6
Vice President 5

MESA Events attended

We asked seniors what MESA events/programs they attended and compiled their answers below.

87.5% of the senior participated at least in one UC Davis organized MESA event. 12.5% of seniors responded they did not attend any event.

85.9% of senior attended at least one MESA Day event.

Stand out answers from MESA day event participants and non-participants

Many of the respondents who did not attend any MESA event said they were not able to because they lacked the resources to do so. After further inspections, these lacking resources seem to be referring to the MESA competition material boxes that are delivered at the beginning of every school year to school sites from the UC Davis MESA center. For the 2023-2024 academic year, in order to encourage students to register early in MESA Salesforce, we made it a policy for school sites over a certain number of MESA students to have at least 50% of their students registered in Saleforce for them to receive competition materials.

The respondents furthered elaborated the lack of registered students was due solely to miscommunication, at least in the case of Grant Union High School and Rio Linda High School. Perhaps reaching out to this student’s MESA adviser is advised to help prevent this from happening next school year. Another student from River city who did not attend any MESA event said it was because they were just unable to make it to the day of the competition days, nor any other MESA event.

Extracurricular Activites

Seniors listed a myriad of extracurricular activities under this section in the survey. Due to time contraints, below is a simple list of the different extracurriculars activities seniors participated in.

Other extracurricular activites

Robotics National Honor Society
Interact VSA
HOSA French Club
MECHA PACE
AVID Mu Alpha Theta
mathletes Science Bowl
academic decathlon UC Davis Vet Med Program
Humanities International Studies Program Criminal Justice Magnet Academy
MESA Red-cross
guitar project Computer science program
APISA cyberpatriots
Life Skills Club Machine Learning Club
choir Japanese Club
California Scholarship Federation Competitive Programming Competitions
Key Club GATE
Brown Issues Science and Engineering Academy
Square Root CREATE mentoring program
Project Invent EAOP
NHS Model UN Electronic engineering academy
Boys4Bikes non-profit electronics technology skillsUSA
VAPA program UNICEF Unite
Rocketry club LLS
Engineering Pathway River City Food Bank
Asian Resources Inc Elk Grove Civic Summer Internship
American Association of University Women piano class
boy scouts orchestra
forestry dancing Club
part-time job Princeton Learning Experience
Manufacturing and Design Science olympiad
Social Awareness and Action Club Biomedical Academy
pharmacy internship California Assembly Legislative Intern
PACE Honors Program Northern California Education Foundation Intern
medical club UC Davis School of Medicine Adolescent
Korean Dance Club Young Adult Advisory
Student government UC Davis Health Equity Academy
chinese tutor/assistant Teen Job fair
Link Crew Robotics

College admission standarized testing

According to the survey answers, students took the following college admission test. Some students took both, the SAT and ACT.

Exam taken Count
I did not take them 16
ACT 1
SAT 42
SAT, ACT 5

The SAT seems to be the most popular out of the admission exams.

Below are the tests taken by school.

A-G requirements in math and science

Per the survey respondents, 100% of our graduating senior completed their A-G requirements in Math and Science.

GPA

One question during the survey asked for students’ high school GPA. Students inputted both, their unweighted and weighted GPA in the same cell making it difficult to perform calculations on the average without extensive text manipulation. It is recommended for the next survey that weighted and unweighted GPA are in different questions and that they round their GPA to only 2 decimal places. Now we can proceed for the GPA analysis.

The average unweighted GPA of all MESA seniors who answered the survey was 3.761, the median was 3.825. 50% of the GPAs fall between 3.700 and 3.938. 14 students did not provide their unweighted GPA.

GPA
Min. 2.300
1st Qu. 3.700
Median 3.825
Mean 3.761
3rd Qu. 3.938
Max. 4.000
NA’s 14.000

The average weighted GPA was 4.28 with a median of 4.29. 50% of the GPAs fall between 4.130 and 4.48. 11 students did not provide their weighted GPA.

GPA
Min. 3.34
1st Qu. 4.13
Median 4.29
Mean 4.28
3rd Qu. 4.48
Max. 5.00
NA’s 11.00

Some students did not specify whether their GPA (those below 4.0) was weighted or unweighted, thus we assumed they are unweighted. This may cause the average not to be completely accurate. But it should still give us a good idea of seniors’ GPA.

Average GPA by school

High School Average GPA (unweighted)
West Campus HS 3.907
River City HS 3.852
Grant Union HS 3.833
Franklin HS 3.793
John F. Kennedy HS 3.764
Pleasant Grove HS 3.750
C.K. McClatchy HS 3.623
Rio Linda HS 3.420
High School Average GPA (weighted)
Grant Union HS 4.850
Pleasant Grove HS 4.456
Rio Linda HS 4.350
Franklin HS 4.278
West Campus HS 4.234
River City HS 4.213
John F. Kennedy HS 4.171
C.K. McClatchy HS 4.156

Post-high school planning

A great majority consiting of 87.6% of MESA seniors are moving to a 4-year college and 9.3% are moving to community college. Look below at distribution by school.

School planned on attending

For those students headed to college, these are the colleges they are attending.

College name Students attending
Undecided 1
Cal Poly Pomona 1
Cal Poly SLO 2
Colorado School Of Mines 1
Community College 1
Cosumnes River College 2
CSU Chico 1
CSU Monterey Bay 1
CSU Sacramento 9
Online College 1
Sac City College 3
Saint Mary’s 1
SJSU 1
Stanford 1
UC Berkeley 2
UC Davis 13
UC Irvine 1
UC Los Angeles 1
UC Merced 1
UC Riverside 1
UC San Diego 5
UC Santa Barbara 2
UCLA 3
Undecided UC 4
Virginia Tech 1

Student Majors

Exhaustive list of student’s major from those who said they were to attend a 4-year university or college.

major
1 Cognitive Science
2 Computer Engineering
3 Civil Engineering
4 Computer Science
5 Mathematics
7 Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
8 Engineering Technology
9 Biological Sciences
10 Architecture
11 Physics
12 Aerospace/Mechanical Engineering
13 Psychology
14 Biology
15 Sociology & Criminology
17 Anthropology
18 Mechanical Engineering
20 Computer Engineering
21 Applied Physics
23 Mechanical Engineering
25 Electrical Engineering
26 Biomedical Engineering
30 Political Science
31 Administration of Justice
32 Animal Science
33 Field Service engineering
35 Construction Technology
37 Mechatronics Engineering
43 Materials Science & Engineering
45 Food Science
50 Business
51 Urban Planning
52 Undecided
58 Cybersecurity
61 Biomedical engineering
College name Students attending
Undecided 1
Cal Poly Pomona 1
Cal Poly SLO 2
Colorado School Of Mines 1
Community College 1
Cosumnes River College 2
CSU Chico 1
CSU Monterey Bay 1
CSU Sacramento 9
Online College 1
Sac City College 3
Saint Mary’s 1
SJSU 1
Stanford 1
UC Berkeley 2
UC Davis 13
UC Irvine 1
UC Los Angeles 1
UC Merced 1
UC Riverside 1
UC San Diego 5
UC Santa Barbara 2
UCLA 3
Undecided UC 4
Virginia Tech 1

Awareness of College Tranfer Programs

Out of the respondents, 34 seniors (53.1%) responded “No” to being familiar with the Transfer Admission Guarantee (TAG) program and another 34 seniors (53.1%) responded that they were not familiar with the Transfer Admission Planner (TAP).

Seniors who filed for FAFSA

Our MESA seniors were asked in their MESA exit survey if they completed their FAFSA.

Filed for FAFSA for the 2024-2025 school year Count
Yes 58
No 6

As you can see in the table, some students answered “No” to filing the FAFSA. When asked why they did not complete the FAFSA, the following answers stood out: + “I don’t need financial aid” + “still a junior” + “I’m having trouble with completing it I submitted it but need corrections” + “Not going to receive any aid besides small loans”

It seems some students still have an incorrect notion of how FAFSA works. Perhaps FAFSA workshops for seniors may be advised for the upcoming school years.

Below is the information of the 6th seniors who did not file for FAFSA.

First Name Last Name Personal Email High School
Isaac Khabra Franklin HS
Haroon Naveed Rio Linda HS
andrea Jimenez Rio Linda HS
Nicholas Wong West Campus HS
Nicholas Wong West Campus HS
Nicholas Renner C.K. McClatchy HS

Asking about their knowledge of college level MESA service

15% of seniors responded not being aware that there was a college level MESA program. 27 students provided their email and requested information on college MESA level. Look below for emails.

Email addresses of seniors

Feedback and suggestions from students

Below is the positive feedback that stood out:

  1. “I love MESA”
  2. “I don’t have any feedback but I really enjoyed being in this program! Not only has it taught me to persevere through hardships such as when our projects broke or didn’t work as well as we wanted them to but it has also given me a community. Interacting with other members in the same events or even other events has been more rewarding than I ever expected to be. I hope to take my experience in MESA and be a part of the program even in my college endeavors!”
  3. “I love MESA!! But call it Meh-sah”
  4. “I just learnt from a grad student that many professors who specialize in the experimental side of their major are looking for people who can run their experiments, using the MESA program as a middle ground to introduce students to a laboratory setting where they have to collect data and provide a summary of said data. This of course gives students an idea of what is expected in their major and invaluable learning experience that few get.”
  5. “The MESA administration is doing a good job, no need for improvement(at least from my perspective).”
  6. “Being a part of Mesa was a great experience in highschool. It has helped develop my brain in an engineering way.”
  7. “I LOVED participating in MESA this school year. The engineering progress was very fun and the designing and working with a team was great experience.”

Below is the constructive criticism we received:

  1. “Registration can definitely be improved for next year, there were a few problems with parents receiving the PAF through their email. For MESA Day, it would be nice if families and friends could attend and watch the events.” 2.”Make math escape in person”
  2. “Limit the use of electronics in MESA machine. It limits creative use of physical mechanisms in favor of electronic ones. Also, coding solutions and math escape should be checked for mistakes. The one two years ago had some problems required rounding in calculations, while others required no rounding until the final answer.”
  3. “Have a good schedule.”
  4. “Give students more supplies for the contest participants.”
  5. “use a google spread sheet to show off the scoring to be more accessible, i think csu east bay does this.”
  6. “I have been in MESA for over 5 years and I feel like this program has provided me with so many opportunities that I wouldn’t have gotten if I wasn’t in it. It inspired me to be a civil engineer and discover my love for building and designing things. Before doing MESA and competing, I really didn’t know what I wanted to do as a career. I was considering being a pharmacist, but thank goodness I didn’t choose that path because I know that I wouldn’t be happy or feel fulfilled with the career. I hope that my journey towards being a civil engineer can fill that gap. I believe that MESA as a whole is an amazing program for all students so they can find a pathway that they enjoy and want to pursue. There are some things that I would like to see improved though. As you may already know, my team and I were involved in a case where we believe cheating by another team was involved. We hope that new rules and guidelines can take place so this can be prevented later on. I do understand that a lot of this falls onto the nature of the students and advisors, but I do hope that there are official rules and guidelines can be introduced when another case of alleged”cheating” occurs. Whether that is through better communication, formal meetings, hearing the teams out, etc. I do just hope this can be added to next year’s rules. Other than that, thank you so much MESA! This journey with you guys have been amazing. I feel like I was able to connect with so many friends, MESA staff, and teachers through this program. The way that you guys know most of the JFK MESA team is kind of mind boggling to me, but that allowed us to connect with you guys on a new level! You guys are so cool and kind and welcoming and funny (I loved the video at the end of the banquet!!!) Being in MESA also allowed me to discover my love for the UC Davis campus which is one of the reasons why I am attending this school next year. Again, thank you so much!!!”
  7. “Maybe more hands on activities next year”
  8. “MESA BUCKS send to advisor please, thank you.”

General comments from students pertaining to the survey:

  1. “I only took the PSAT not the SAT but there wasn’t an option for PSAT or none in the question above”
  2. “The survey was well formatted and concise. No suggestion needed from my perspective.”
  3. “I have no advice, everything was easy enough to follow”

More general comments:

  1. “I think for the most part it was our fault that we weren’t as involved as we didn’t know what to due.”

Updated survey questions outline and answer format for next year’s survey

Below you will find the updated questions for next year’s 12th Grade MESA exit survey.

  1. First Name
    • [Short response format]
  2. Last Name
    • [Short response format]
  3. Address
    • [Long response format]
  4. Personal email
    • [Short response format]
  5. High School Name reponses in multiple choice format. only one option answers accepted
    • JFK
    • West Campus
    • Rio Linda
    • etc…
  6. Were you involved in MESA in middle/Junior high? reponses in multiple choice format. only one option answers accepted
    • Yes
    • No
  7. How many years did you participate in MESA? reponses in multiple choice format. only one option answers accepted
    • Less than a year
    • 1 year
    • 2 year
    • 3 year
    • 4 year
    • 5 year
    • 6 or more years
  8. Did you hold a leadership position in MESA? reponses in multiple choice format. only one option answers accepted
    • Yes
    • No
  9. If you answered, “Yes”, what leadership position did you hold? Choose “Other if your position is not there” Put “No leadership position” if this questions does not apply to you. reponses in multiple choice format. multiple option responses accepted
    • President
    • Vice-president
    • Treasurer
    • Historian
    • Secretary
    • Media representative
    • Team captain
    • No leadership position
    • Other
  10. What MESA event (MESA Day, MESA x MSE Day, summer program) did you participate in? List all. If you did not participate in any, why not? reponses in multiple choice format. multiple option responses accepted
    • MESA Day Prelim Competition (March 2024)
    • MESA Day Regional (April 2024)
    • MESA Day Banquet
    • MESA High School Day
    • MESA Summer Program
    • MESA Summer Internship
    • add any missing events
  11. List your High School Activities: Sports, academic programs, volunteer. Separate activities by a comma (“,”). Write answers in the following format: “Tennis, volunteer at Scripps Hospital, MESA”
    • [Long response format]
  12. Did you take any college admission exams? reponses in multiple choice format. multiple option responses accepted
    • SAT
    • ACT
    • I did not take any college admission exam
  13. Did you complete your A-G requirements for math? reponses in multiple choice format. only one option answers accepted
    • Yes
    • No
  14. Did you complete your A-G requirements for science? reponses in multiple choice format. only one option answers accepted
    • Yes
    • No
  15. If you answered no to any of the above two questions, why did you not complete the A-G requirements for math and/or science? Type “NA” if this question does not apply to you.
    • [Long response format]
  16. What is your current unweighted GPA? Round answer to 2 decimals, e.g. “3.24”
    • [short response format]
  17. What is your current weighted GPA (AP coursework)? Round answer to 2 decimals, e.g. “4.24.” If your weighted GPA does not change from your unweighted GPA, please write your unweighted GPA here as well.
    • [short response format]
  18. What are your plans after graduating high school? reponses in multiple choice format. multiple option responses accepted
    • 4 year college
    • Community college
    • Military service
    • Trade school
    • Gap year
    • Work
    • Other
  19. Are you familiar with the Transfer Admission Guarantee (TAG) program? reponses in multiple choice format. only one option answers accepted
    • Yes
    • No
  20. Are you familiar with the Transfer Admission Planner(TAP) program? reponses in multiple choice format. only one option answers accepted
    • Yes
    • No
  21. If you would like more information on the TAG and/or TAP program, please provide your email address.
    • [short response format]
  22. If you are headed to college, university or community college, what school do you plan to attend?
    • [short response format]
  23. What will your major be in college/university?
    • [short response format]
  24. Did you file FAFSA for the upcoming school year (2025-2026)? reponses in multiple choice format. only one option answers accepted
    • Yes
    • No
    • No, because I had difficulties with the process
    • No, because I do not know how to complete the FAFSA
  25. Did you know that there are MESA Programs in Community College and Universities? reponses in multiple choice format. only one option answers accepted
    • Yes
    • No
  26. If you are interested in learning which colleges/universities have a MESA program, please provide your email address. We can put you in contact with the MESA program at the college you plan to attend. Type “NA” if this question does not apply to you.
    • [short response format]
  27. Please provide any feedback, suggestions, and comments for us on how we’re doing or what we can do to improve?
    • [long response format]