outbound and outgoing

[Jenny Nguyen]

Dear teacher,

What is the difference between "outgoing student" and "outbound student"?

Thank you.

Jenny

 

[emsr2d2]

Please write a couple of example sentences using those words.

 

[Jenny Nguyen]

Please write a couple of example sentences using those words.

It is written in a survey. The original is as follows:
Number of exchange students (outbound)
Number/percentage:....
% of total outgoing students:....
Number/percentage:....

 

[Rover_KE]

Without further context, I see no difference.

 

[emsr2d2]

Did both of those sentences appear in the original survey? If so, it suggests that the people who wrote the survey thought they meant different things, otherwise all they've done is repeat the same question once with "outgoing" and once with "outbound". That would be a strange thing to do. Like Rover, I can't see any difference between them so if both of those questions appeared on a questionnaire, I would wonder why they were asking me the same question twice.

 

[GoesStation]

Perhaps outbound means students from your country who are going to another, and outgoing means students who are leaving the program.

If I were presented with a survey like that, my first choice would be to discard it as meaningless. If I was required to answer it, I'd contact its writer for clarification.

 

[Jenny Nguyen]

Actually, it appeared in the original of an official survey of a project.

 

[Raymott]

If you have the raw data, a bit of simple maths should tell you if the number of outgoing students equals the number of outbound students. If so, it's very likely they mean the same thing.

 

[Tdol]

I guess that outbound is used to distinguish them from exchange students coming in, while other outgoing students may not be exchange students.