High Impact Practices and Graduate School Aspirations among Underrepresented STEM Students

Presented at the American College Personnel Association (ACPA) annual convention, Louisville, KY, March 26, 2012.Given the disproportionately low numbers of underrepresented minorities (URM) in STEM career, promoting the graduate school aspirations of URM STEM students is crucial in continuing to diversify the STEM workforce; consequently, it is important for universities to identify high-impact practices that can encourage URM STEM students to aspire to graduate education. This presentation explores the relationship between participation in high-impact practices and graduate school aspirations among URM STEM students at 11 large, public research universities. The results suggest that URM STEM students who participate in community service and research with faculty are twice as likely to aspire to graduate education compared to their peers who did not engage in those high-impact practices