Public Information

We define student achievement as the demonstration of competence in applying knowledge and skills gained through academic work.  Such competence is evident both in and beyond the classroom.  Traditional measures of student achievement include degree completion rates, pass rates of comprehensive exams, and pass rates for the AICP exam.  In addition to these traditional measures, we also place a high premium on measures that capture a student's success in interacting with the profession.

Measures include the percentage of eligible students employed in an internship while a student, the number of students who present at local, state, and national professional organization meetings (e.g. American Planning Association), the number of individual students or student teams that win awards for their project-oriented work, and post-graduate employment rates in the field.

Virtually all domestic students who want an internship are able to be placed in a paid position that is part-time during the academic year and full-time during the summer.  Placement is more challenging for international students.  Assistance is provided to students studying on an F1 visa to help place them in internships that qualify under the Curricular Practical Training provisions of their visa.

As a sampling of recent student achievements, KU UBPL students won New Horizon Team Awards from the Kansas Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA) in 2014, 2015, and 2019 and an Individual New Horizon award in 2017.  Five students presented posters at the 2015 National APA conference, three at the 2017 conference, one at the 2017 Pacific Northwest Political Science Conference, two at the 2015 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) conference, one at the 2019 National Adaptation Forum (Best Student Poster award winner), one poster at the 2019 ACSP Conference, and one presenter at the ACSP Conference.  Two students were in “Student and Active Alum Spotlight” features on the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning website in 2017.  KU UBPL students have been Helene M. Overly Scholarship recipients in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2019 from the WTS-Kansas City (Transportation Chapter).  Alumni serve as officers with the Kansas Chapter of APA and the Kansas City Section of APA.  In 2019 alumni also served on national APA’s American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) Commission and the AICP Ethics Committee.  Four alumni presented at the 2019 Quad State Planning conference and six at the 2019 National Planning Conference.  Alumni worked on two national APA award winning projects in 2019.  Alumni were part of two Great Places in America winners: 2019’s Great Neighborhood – Downtown Lee’s Summit, MO and 2010’s Great Street – Massachusetts Street in Lawrence, KS.  Also two alumni have authored or co-authored two Zoning Practice reports in 2018 and 2019 for APA and one has co-authored a PAS Memo for APA in 2018.

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