Evaluating Colin Powell School Fellowship Program
by Hanh Nguyen
Overview:
Colin Powell School Fellowships are programs provided annually for both undergraduate and graduate students, aiming to create a platform to help student gain experience in their field of study.
In this report, we focused on four (4) programs:
- Climate Policy Fellows Program.
- Colin Powell Fellowship in Leadership and Public Service.
- NBCU Academy Fellow Program.
- Racial Justice Fellow Program.
Each program was design to connect students with different organization specialized in the students’ field study, and help them building specific skill sets neccessary for their future career.
The Fellowship Program in 2022
There are a total of 136 students applied to Colin Powell Fellowship Programs this 2022, in which we received 67 applications for Climate Policy Fellows Program, 23 applications for Colin Powell Fellowship in Leadership and Public Service, 21 for NBCU Academy Fellows Program, and 25 for Racial Justice Fellows Program.
| Program | Counts |
|---|---|
| Climate Policy Fellows Program | 67 |
| Colin Powell Fellowship in Leadership and Public Service | 23 |
| NBCU Academy Fellows Program | 21 |
| Racial Justice Fellows Program | 25 |
Application General Statistics.
A large portion of the applicants is Asian (n = 41) followed by Black/African American (n = 33) and Latinx (n = 30)
Most applicants reported that they learned about these fellowship programs from Emails (n = 75), Faculty (n = 50) and Peers (n = 34).
About 55% of the applicants were born in the US (n = 73)
| US Born? | Student Counts | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| No | 57 | 43 |
| Prefer not to state | 3 | 2 |
| Yes | 73 | 55 |
Among these US Born Applicants, only 21% having US Born parents.
| Parents were US Born? | Counts | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| No | 44 | 33 |
| Prefer not to state | 1 | 1 |
| Yes | 28 | 21 |
49% applicants reported having at least one parents graduated from college.
| At least 1 Parent with College Degree? | Counts | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| No | 62 | 47 |
| Prefer not to state | 6 | 5 |
| Yes | 65 | 49 |
The majority of applicants considered themselves as females (She/Her/Hers, n = 77) while 49 applicants considered themselves as males (He/Him/His). There were also other types of gender identity being reported (n = 8 or 6%).
| Pronouns | Student Counts | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| He/Him/His | 49 | 37 |
| He/Him/They/Them | 3 | 2 |
| Name | 1 | 1 |
| She/He/They | 1 | 1 |
| She/Her/Hers | 77 | 57 |
| She/Her/They/Them | 2 | 1 |
| They/Them/Theirs | 1 | 1 |
Application Acceptance Rate
The overall acceptance rate was 52%, with 71 applications being accepted and 65 being rejected.
| Decision | Student Counts | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Accepted | 71 | 52 |
| Rejected | 65 | 48 |
To better understand whether difference attributes affect applicants’ chance of being accepted to a fellowship program, a few questions were asked to investigate.
1. Were applicants who were US Born more likely to be accepted?
By comparing Final Decision (Accepted or Rejected) between US-born and non-US-born applicants, there was not much of a difference in acceptance rate between US Born applicant () and Non-US Born applicants.
2. Were applicants whose parent was with a college degree more likely to be accepted?
Similarly, there is no difference in acceptance rate among applicants whose parents with or without a college degree.
3. Were applicants who had participated previously in another fellowship more likely to be accepted?
There is no difference in acceptance rate between applicants with or without previous fellowship experience.
4. Do being a full Time status and having more Current Credits affect acceptance rate?“
The majority of the applicants (96%) has been taken classes full-time and will continue their next semester as full-time students. Therefore, students’ status does not really affect applicants’ chance to be accepted to a fellowship program.
While comparing differences in number of current credit among applicants to see if this attributes would affect students’ chance to be accepted in a fellowship program, we noticed that accepted applicants tend to have slightly more number of credits.
However, an independent t-test indicated NO SIGNIFICANT difference in number of current credits between Accepted (M = 72 credits) and Rejected Applicants (M = 69 credits), t(131) = 0.3841, p = 0.7015.
##
## Two Sample t-test
##
## data: response$credit by response$Final.Decision
## t = 0.38414, df = 131, p-value = 0.7015
## alternative hypothesis: true difference in means between group Accepted and group Rejected is not equal to 0
## 95 percent confidence interval:
## -10.35064 15.33922
## sample estimates:
## mean in group Accepted mean in group Rejected
## 71.63714 69.14286GPA Comparison Between Accepted versus Rejected Applications.
Cummulative GPA is also an important attribute to assess students’ college performance. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate if applicants’ GPA affect acceptance rate.
In this analysis, we consider GPA = 3.0 as the GPA satisfied level, with GPA > 3.0 as higher level of college performance and GPA < 3.0 as lower level of college performance.
Based on the boxplot and mean bar visualization, Accepted Applicants appeared to have slightly higher mean GPA all though the majority of the applicants (both Accepted and Rejected) had GPA > 3.0 (higher level of college performance)
##
## Two Sample t-test
##
## data: response$Cumulative.GPA by response$Final.Decision
## t = 0.92771, df = 134, p-value = 0.3552
## alternative hypothesis: true difference in means between group Accepted and group Rejected is not equal to 0
## 95 percent confidence interval:
## -0.1687849 0.4670072
## sample estimates:
## mean in group Accepted mean in group Rejected
## 3.316296 3.167185However, an independent t-test indicated NO SIGNIFICANT difference in Cumulative GPA between Accepted (M = 3.3163) and Rejected Applicants (M = 3.1672), t(134) = 0.9277, p = 0.3552.
Accepted Applicants’ GPA Comparison Accross Programs.
Since there was NO SIGNIFICANT difference in Cummulative GPA between Accepted and Rejected Applicants, there might be a chance that different fellowship program weighting the GPA attribute differently.
By visualizing GPA difference across programs with boxplot and mean error bar, we noticed that:
- Colin Powell Fellowship in Leadership and Public Service accepted students with higher Mean GPA.
Still, all of the error overlaps, there were NO SIGNIFICANT difference in Accepted Applicant GPA across programs.
## Df Sum Sq Mean Sq F value Pr(>F)
## program 3 0.16 0.05341 0.214 0.886
## Residuals 63 15.71 0.24939A One Way ANOVA test also confirmed such result: NO SIGNIFICANT difference in Cumulative was found across program, F(3, 63) = 0.214, p = 0.886.
Actual Participated Applicants
However, there were 5 applicants who got accepted but latter declined the offer, leaving only 66 students actually participated in the fellowship program after being accepted.
| Decision | Student Counts | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Accepted | 69 | 51 |
| Accepted but Declined | 5 | 4 |
| Rejected | 62 | 46 |
The five later declined applicants were 2 from Racial Justice Fellows Program and 1 in each of the other three programs: NBCU Academy Fellows Program (1), Climate Policy Fellows Program (1), and Colin Powell Fellowship in Leadership and Public Service (1), leaving the actual participated students in this year fellowship being distributed as:
| Program | Application Counts | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Climate Policy Fellows Program | 26 | 38 |
| Colin Powell Fellowship in Leadership and Public Service | 14 | 20 |
| NBCU Academy Fellows Program | 14 | 20 |
| Racial Justice Fellows Program | 15 | 22 |
Evaluating Fellowship Program
In this evaluation, four (4) programs were our target:
- Climate Policy Fellows Program.
- Colin Powell Fellowship in Leadership and Public Service.
- NBCU Academy Fellow Program.
- Racial Justice Fellow Program.
For each program, different facets will be compared and analyzed.
1. Colin Powell Fellowship in Leadership and Public Service (2018 - 2022).
Colin Powell Fellowship in Leadership and Public Service is the program that has been in service the longest time out of the four program.
According to our data, there has been a decline of 34.29% in number of total applications from 35 applicants in 2020 to 23 applications in 2022.
However, the program’s acceptance rate has been increasing consistently from 31.43% in 2020, to 51.85% in 2021, and currently peaks at 65.22% in 2022.
| Year | Acceptance Rate |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 43.75 |
| 2019 | 35.29 |
| 2020 | 31.43 |
| 2021 | 51.85 |
| 2022 | 65.22 |
2. Racial Justice Fellows Program (2020 - 2022).
Racial Justice Fellows Program has been in service since 2020, but has been consistently receiving less and less applications over the past three years, decreasing 63.24% from the total of 68 applications in 2020 to 25 applications in 2022.
| Year | Acceptance Rate |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 19.12 |
| 2021 | 39.22 |
| 2022 | 60.00 |
3. Climate Policy Fellows Program (2020 - 2022).
Similar to Racial Justice Fellow Program, Climate Policy Fellows Program has been in service since 2020. Like other programs, the total number application applied to Climate Policy Program was decreasing 21.18% from 85 applications in 2021 to 67 applications in 2022.
| Year | Acceptance Rate |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 35.62 |
| 2021 | 35.29 |
| 2022 | 40.30 |
4.NBCU Academy Fellows Program (2021 - 2022).
NBCU Academy Fellows Program started to provide connections and support for students since 2021. Still, like others, the total number of application declining from 26 to 21 applications in 2022.
| Year | Acceptance Rate |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 57.69 |
| 2022 | 71.43 |