Saturday, March 27, 2010
Deans of admissions at universities would be advised to pray for gloomy weather on visitation days. A study by a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania found that prospective students are more likely to choose a college if the weather is cloudy on the day they visit than if it’s sunny.
Uri Simonsohn compared weather patterns with the enrollment decisions of 1,284 prospective students at one institution of higher education and noticed a 9% increase in the probability of enrollment if the sky was overcast on visitation day.
“When you think about it, it kind of makes sense,” Simonsohn told The Times Higher Education. “To some extent, you do feel less guilty if you are working hard if it is not appealing to be outdoors. If it is cloudy and raining outside, you don’t mind reading. If it is beautiful and sunny, you feel like you are not doing what you are supposed to be doing with your time.”
In an earlier study, Simonsohn concluded that cloudy weather also influences the university employees making admission decisions. On cloudy days, admissions officers give more weight to an applicant’s academic record, while on sunny days they are more impressed by non-academic attributes.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Students Prone to Grey-Sky Thinking (by Rebecca Attwood, Times Higher Education)
Weather to Go to College (by Uri Simonsohn, Economic Journal) (pdf)
Clouds Make Nerds Look Good: Field Evidence of the Impact of Incidental Factors on Decision Making (by Uri Simonsohn, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making) (pdf)
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