EDGE Statistics

One goal of the EDGE Program is to improve retention rates for women in graduate programs in mathematics by providing a supportive and positive learning environment the summer prior to graduate school. That support continues in the first year of graduate school by insuring that students are mentored and integrated into the social and academic community of their departments. There is considerable evidence that the program has met this goal.

The EDGE Program has succeeded in reducing first-year attrition among its participants. In a study on graduate attrition across all disciplines, one large university reported (2002) that almost 59% of 363 new Ph.D. students (over a ten-year period) left their programs after only two semesters of study, before receiving a degree. Other studies report rates of attrition from Ph.D. programs between 30% and 70% (Herzig, 2002). For the fifty EDGE participants in the first five years of the program, only 8% discontinued their studies without earning the master’s degree. As of November, 2007, twelve of the first fifty participants students have earned the Ph.D. Several of these women are still enrolled in their programs, and projections indicate that approximately 22 of these women will obtain the Ph.D. by 2008. Moreover, in some years the projected completion rate is over 60%.

Another indicator of success is that EDGE students who find their initial choice of a graduate school unsatisfactory often relocate to a second university rather than drop out of graduate school altogether. To date, at least five women have successfully transferred to a new graduate program after realizing their first one was not an appropriate match.

Herzig (2004) points to several studies that emphasize the importance of social integration as well as intellectual integration into the communities of the department in order to sustain one’s membership in an academic community. She found that “doctoral students who persisted were more likely to have entered graduate school already in possession of important forms of cultural capital that facilitated their integration into mathematics.” In light of the fact that most EDGE participants belong to groups that do not possess this “cultural capital,” namely women (100%), minority students (49%), students from four-year colleges (44%), and first-generation college graduates (10%), the outcomes thus far are encouraging.

References

Herzig, Abbe H. (2004). Becoming mathematicians: Women and students of color choosing and leaving doctoral mathematics. Review of Educational Research, 74(2), pp. 171-214.

Herzig, Abbe H.. (2002). Where have all the students gone? Participation of doctoral students in authentic mathematical activity as a necessary condition for persistence toward the Ph.D. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 50(2), pp. 177-212.