Calculating the Students for

The College Preparatory Program Report

 

Step 1:         Identify and include EVERY STUDENT who entered your institution for the first time during the reporting period.  For this “iteration” of the report, the reporting period will be summer semester 2004, fall semester 2004 and spring semester 2005.

 

Step 2:         SUBTRACT students who were admitted to an affiliated College of Technology.  This step will only apply to The University of Montana-Missoula, Montana Tech of The University of Montana, and Montana State University-Billings.

Explanation:  The College Preparatory Program is a requirement for admission to the four-year campuses.  Therefore, it does not apply to the Colleges of Technology that are affiliated with one of the four-year institutions.  The College Preparatory Program has absolutely nothing to do with two-year or four-year programs, however, so Montana State University-Bozeman, The University of Montana-Western and Montana State University- Northern should skip this step.

 

Step 3:         SUBTRACT students who entered your institution with credits from another post-secondary institution.

               Explanation:  The College Preparatory Program policy only applies to first-time students.  A first-time student is defined as “any entering freshman who has never attended any college or who entered with advanced standing credits (college credits earned before graduation from high school).”

 

Step 4:         SUBTRACT students who only attended your institution during summer semester of the reporting period. 

   Explanation:  Summer only students are excluded from the College Preparatory Program requirement, by Regent policy.

 

Step 5:         SUBTRACT students who did not enter your institution for a period of at least three years from the date of their high school graduation or from the date when they would have graduated from high school.

Explanation:  So-called “non-traditional students” are excluded from the College Preparatory Program requirement.  Non-traditional students are defined, by Regent policy, as students who have been out of high school for at least three (3) years.

 

Step 6:          SUBTRACT all out-of-state students.

               Explanation:  The purpose of this report is to “compare” the performance of students who completed the College Preparatory Program against students who were admitted to the Montana University System by exemption because they had not completed that Program.  In establishing that exemption, Regent policy states that only in-state students should be included in the overall pool when determining the number of exemptions authorized at each institution.

 

Step 7:         SUBTRACT students who are not full-time students.  I.E., students who take “seven or fewer college-level semester credits.”

               Explanation:  Part-time students are excluded from the College Preparatory Program requirement, by Regent policy.  Part-time students are defined as “students taking seven or fewer college-level semester credits.”

               Caution:  In order to be excluded from the Report entirely, students must have maintained their part-time status all during the reporting period.  If any student becomes a full-time student during the reporting period, using the policy definition set out above, they should be included in the Report.

               Additional Caution:  Summer school may cause a particular problem with this calculation.  Because most units of the Montana University System have accelerated or compressed sessions during summer school, it is possible for a student to accumulate more credits during the summer semester than they ordinarily might during the regular academic year.  To assist with this section, the following operating rules should help:

·         The entire summer session should be considered one (1) semester, regardless of how many sub-sessions it might be divided into.  I.E., UM-Missoula’s two five-week sessions should be considered one semester.  In calculating the part-time status of the student, that student’s total number of credits during the entire summer should be considered, rather than each, individual sub-session.

·         Because a student can accumulate more credits during the summer sub-sessions, their status as a part-time or full-time student should not be automatically determined by the summer session credit load.  If a student exceeds the part-time definition above during the summer session, but remains a part-time student during the fall and spring semester, they should be classified as a part-time student for the entire reporting period.  The summer school enrollment should not determine a student’s status for the entire year, under the guidelines of this report.

·         Because of the complexity of this particular step, it has been placed near the end of the report, to reduce the student pool as much as possible.  If students should be removed for other reasons, that happens in previous steps.  Step 8 is then applied to a smaller pool of students.

 

Step 8:         SUBTRACTstudents who have been admitted to your institution under some kind of temporary admissions program or process.

               Explanation:  Most of the campuses have an “admissions program or admissions status” that permits students to enter the institution on a “temporary basis,” without going through the entire admissions process with its complexity of paperwork and documentation.  That procedure is intended to assist students who just want to pick up a handful of courses, because they are interested in learning more about some particular subject, like an introductory water color course or astronomy or something that has always been an interest of theirs.  On most of the campuses, students have to go through the regular admissions process with all of its paperwork, once they have accumulated a certain number of credits under this temporary status.  Other campuses apparently permit students to continue under this program “indefinitely,” as long as they have no intention of ever working on a degree or credential of some kind.  Since these students have not been formally admitted to your institution, as matriculating students, they should be subtracted from the pool if they haven’t been eliminated by an earlier step in the formula.  This step has been placed at the end of the formula, because previous steps in this narrative have probably already erased them.  But just in case a few hangers-on are still in the pool, they should be removed now.

 

Step 9:    The total number of students remaining in your institution’s pool, following step 8, will become the number reported in the first box, first row of the College Preparatory program report.

 

Step 10:         IDENTIFY the number of students who were admitted to your institution under the 15% exemption created by Policy 301.1.

               Explanation:  Policy 301.1 authorizes each institution in the Montana University System “. . .to exempt up to 15% of first-time, full-time undergraduates for students with special talents, minorities and others who demonstrate special needs.”  This exemption applies to three of the admissions expectations set out in Policy 301.1.  I.E., a minimum ACT or SAT score, a minimum high school grade point average; and a minimum class standing.  Since those students were admitted to your institution under a different exemption policy, they need to be identified at this point.  They should not be excluded or subtracted from the overall pool, however, since they do not fall into any of the specific exclusions established in the College Preparatory Program policy.

 

Step 11:         IDENTIFY the number of students who were admitted to your institution under the 5% exemption created by Policy 301.7, College Preparatory Program.  That number will become the total number of students reported in the first box, second row of the College Preparatory Program report.

 

Step 12:  The remainder of the report should be self-explanatory.  The pool of students in step 9 will be used to complete the second table in the report.  The pool of students in step 11 will be used to complete the third table in the report.

 

Step 13:  The pool of students in both step 9 and step 11 should by identified somehow, because the Montana Board of Regents has requested follow-up information on these students at the end of their first year of attendance in the Montana University System, and also in subsequent years.  The number of subsequent years is still being discussed.