The Career Services office regularly collects data about the employment and graduate school attendance plans of Virginia Tech degree applicants. The Center for Survey Research was contracted to collect this longitudinal data by administering a brief annual telephone survey to all undergraduate degree applicants.

A two-stage survey administration was used for both the fall and spring/summer graduating classes. Each administration included an initial call prior to graduation (Stage I) to identify students with definite full-time employment or graduate school plans. Those students without definite plans at the time of the initial call received a follow-up call six months later (Stage II). Also included in the Stage II samples are sample members who were non-respondents or unreachable during the Stage I administration. It should be noted that there were a number of students for whom no current phone or address information was available through University records or other conventional directory sources. These students were coded "untraceable" and dropped from the eligible sample for Stage I and the follow-up sample for Stage II.

After completion of data collection for both the Fall 1997 and Spring/Summer 1998 degree applicants, it was discovered that 23 students were included in each of the two samples provided for these surveys. The more current information for each of these students was retained and duplicate data were deleted. This resulted in 3,299 completed interviews out of a possible 3,584 degree applicants {minus 639 ineligible sample} -- an overall response rate of 92%. Please note that the academic year for this survey is defined as Fall 1997, Spring 1998, and Summer I & II 1998.

	1997-98 report published June 1999
	Questions about the Post-Graduation Report should be directed to Pam Herrmann: herrmann@vt.edu
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