Federal Reserve‑led "Big Data Project" finds counseling and peer networks shape college applications
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Summary
Researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and partner institutions presented analysis showing students who access additional counseling services or who have informed peers are more likely to receive scholarships and attend higher‑selectivity colleges.
A research team led by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis presented findings on June 10 showing that school counseling services and peer networks influence where Hopkins seniors apply and the scholarship outcomes they receive.
Dr. Anusha Nath, a researcher at the Minneapolis Fed, described the Big Data Project, a multi‑partner effort that merged Hopkins student administrative records, survey responses and course histories to examine long‑term outcomes. Using a 2024 senior survey and linked administrative records, the researchers analyzed which seniors applied to college, where they applied and whether they reported receiving scholarships.
The sample analyzed by the team included 373 seniors. Dr. Nath reported that roughly 28% of those respondents were coded as first‑generation college goers (students whose parents had not attended a four‑year institution) and that about 42% of seniors used what the team called “additional counseling services” — that is, beyond a single meeting with the school counselor, they also met college reps, worked with a college and career coordinator or participated in designated college‑prep activities.
The team reported two central findings. First, students who took advantage of extra counseling resources were more likely to be accepted at institutions with higher selectivity proxies and had roughly a 10 percentage‑point higher likelihood of reporting scholarship awards, holding GPA and courses constant. Second, students who did not take up those services nonetheless benefited from more informed peers: an uninformed student who had peers that used extra counseling tended to apply to higher‑quality colleges than an uninformed student whose peers had not used such services.
"The information about colleges, about quality of colleges, likelihood of getting scholarship, really flows through these sort of interactions," Dr. Nath told the board. She said the team’s models control for GPA, course taking and demographic characteristics, and that the peer‑effects were robust in their analyses.
Board members asked about policy implications. Several members — including those involved in Hopkins’ advising and the Maya Learning platform — said the findings strengthen the case for systematizing advising resources and outreach for first‑generation students and low‑income learners. Superintendent Mary Pirie Reid said the district would use the research to inform targeted advising and to design peer‑learning structures in high school.
Dr. Nath and her co‑authors stressed that the results point to low‑cost, high‑leverage interventions: increasing take‑up of existing counseling services and deliberately structuring peer interactions could raise postsecondary access and scholarship outcomes without large scale resource shifts.
Researchers said the Big Data Project will continue work on longitudinal measures and on causal tests of student‑level interventions; the team offered to return to the board with more detailed policy options and to work with district staff on practical implementation.
