Years ago, we learned of a higher education institution with a wonderful reputation for excellence that had incredible silos and disparate processes that were not student friendly. These processes included requiring students to reapply and have their transfer credit reevaluated if they wanted to change majors that were in different colleges at the…

Oakland University (OU) in Rochester, Michigan, was experiencing growing pains. The good news was that OU had experienced 23 years of continuous enrollment growth, with student enrollment exceeding 20,000 in 2015 for the first time ever. The downside was that various administrative processes throughout the university were straining to keep up. One…

The higher education landscape is changing rapidly, and with nationwide trends of declining enrollment, colleges and universities are faced with the challenging task of understanding what that means for them. In the state of Missouri, two- and four-year institutions have experienced decreases in enrollment, with an overall decrease of 9 percent…

The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRO) examined eight areas of research interest to our members in 2018. They had enough longitudinal data to make comparisons of 2018 data to years past. For example, they repeated the registrar's career profile report and learned there will be a large number of…

A key issue for admissions teams is to distinguish which students of those who apply are truly able and sufficiently committed to complete a degree. One signal of a student's ability to achieve college-level academic requirements is participation in high school acceleration programs such as Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or…

Prospective graduate students select a graduate program as a result of a multifaceted decision-making process. This study examines the selection criteria that part-time MBA students used in selecting a program at a private university. Further, it analyzes the methods by which the students first learned of the MBA program. The authors posed the…

A study of transcripts of adult students and younger counterparts to examine patterns of credit load, stopping out, and the flow from special student status to matriculant is presented. Results support earlier findings about academic achievement, and presents new evidence that adult students' pace is generally brisker than previously assumed. (MSE)

This study analyzed the retention and completion rates of international students seeking a master's degree at an American university. Records of 866 international students from 1987-2002 were investigated. Of these, 622 graduated, 92 dropped out of the program, and 152 are still active. Predictor variables analyzed to determine retention to degree…

A study of Brigham Young University (Utah) graduates, 1980-88, looked at patterns in change of major among transfer students and those entering as freshmen. Results are reported concerning early statement of major, open vs. specified major, gender differences, academic achievement, frequency of change, and time to graduation in each year's cohort.…