Radcliffe Survey Reveals More Alumnae Working, Delaying Graduate Studies

Fewer Radcliffe graduates are going directly to graduate schools and business has replaced the media and education as the most popular field of employment for women graduates in the Class of '77, a recent poll by the Radcliffe Alumnae Career Services (RACS) office indicates.

Although 78 per cent of last year's women graduates are planning to attend graduate school eventually, ten per cent fewer than in 1976 are continuing their education immediately after graduation from Radcliffe.

Takin' Care of Business

Nearly one out of every three alumnae who opt for employment is going into business or industry, a ten-per-cent increase from 1976. About 15 per cent of those choosing work enter jobs in the media or education, traditionally the most popular field.

The poll results corroborate those of a questionnaire distributed last June by the Office of Career Services and Off-Campus Learning (OCS-OCL), Martha Leape, coordinator of the health careers advisory program at the OCS-OCL, said yesterday.

Eighty-six per cent of respondents report that their current activities are closely related to their future plans, but 35 per cent of the employed respondents say their jobs are totally unrelated to their field of study at Radcliffe.

The new trend indicates that women are "eager for a couple of years to find out if this is what they want to do," Belle Brett, a counselor in the RACS office who conducted the poll, said yesterday.

Moneymakers

The number of women going into business has increased significantly but steadily over the last three years, Leape said.

One reason for the increase, Brett added, may be that more women are attending business schools which require work experience for admission.

On the Level

"Most of the women are in good entry level positions on the management level," she added.

Answers to the question, "What options are you considering for the next one or two years?" show the most striking changes. Fifty-two per cent of the working group expect to be in their current jobs for the next year or two, compared with only six per cent of the comparable group from the Class of '76.

Baffling

Brett said the dramatic rise is unexplainable and both she and Leape declined comment on any statistical significance of the figures.

One of the most interesting statistics is the fact that 41 per cent of respondents who are employed are working in the greater Boston area.

Over 50 per cent of the employed respondents are earning over 9,000.

Unresponsive

The poll, which was conducted by two sets of mailed questionnaires, had a 60-per-cent response rate, a ten-per-cent decline from a similar 1976 poll.

Brett attributes this decline to several things, including women's reluctance to answer a poll distributed only to one sex.

RACS has been conducting similar surveys since 1950.

Robert J. Ginn Jr., director of the OCS-OCL, was unavailable for comment yesterday.

Survey Results

Alumnae Directly Entering

Graduate School

1976 - 51%

1977 - 41%

Working Alumnae

Employed by Business

1976 - 20%

1977 - 29%