A study by Kenney, Kenney, and Dumont (2005) identified a supportive learning environment as one of the five indicators for collegiate student engagement, a concept that extends beyond the classroom to permeate the entire educational environment. A student's level of engagement can be impacted as early as orientation and registration, when he is experiencing college for the first time and forming initial impressions of and relationships with university faculty and staff. Persistence of a student at a particular institution is measurable, and this persistence to the completion of an educational goal is a "key indicator of student satisfaction and success" (Levitz et al., 1999, p. 31). By proxy, then, student retention is a primary gauge for assessing an institution. In particular, it is important to identify that while retention's primary elements are academic, tactical, and operational, areas like course registration should be evaluated alongside the academic aspects (Dolence, 1991). Howard and Rogers (1991) strongly recommend the use of a longitudinal tracking system that has the ability to identify cohorts of students and succinctly track and analyze their academic progress. This pilot study utilized a conceptual framework based on Bean and Metzner's (1985) model of nontraditional-student attrition to determine if changes in academic success could be identified between two fall first-time freshman cohorts. The findings of this pilot study recognized a marked increase in academic success of those students in the test cohort, thereby confirming the importance of student engagement in the course registration process as a predictor of retention. A bibliography is included.