Helping Students FIG-ure It Out: A Large-Scale Study of Freshmen Interest Groups and Student Success

Freshman seminars are a ubiquitous offering in higher education, but they have not been evaluated using matched comparisons with data at scale. In this work, we use transcript on over 76,000 students to examine the impact of first-year interest groups (FIGs) student graduation and retention. We first apply propensity score matching course-level account for selection bias. find that re-enrollment rates FIG were than non-FIG students, an effect was more pronounced self-identified underrepresented racial minority students. then employ topic modeling analyze survey responses from 12,500 social aspects FIGs most beneficial Interestingly, references disproportionately present