What Analyzing 5,000 Transcripts Has Taught Me

10 Things I’ve Learned from Analyzing 5,000 Transcripts

Michael Horton

As part of a data project being completed and my transcript analysis project, I have had the opportunity to analyze more than 5,000 senior transcripts.  It took a great deal of time, but the lessons learned were worth it.  Here are some of the things that I’ve learned from these transcripts that might help schools prepare more students for college.

In California, the minimum requirements to qualify to attend a state college are called the “a-g requirements” where “a” is History, “b” is English, “c” is math, “d” is science, “e” is language other than English, “f” is visual and performing arts, and “g” is college prep electives.  See here for more information http://www.ucop.edu/agguide/a-g-requirements/. 

1)      The “a-g” requirements sound simple, but once it comes down to analyzing transcripts it gets complicated.  There are so many validation rules and “if/then” scenarios that I frequently had to call on my colleagues to double-check certain transcripts.  If this process is difficult for educators, imagine what it must be like for students and their parents!

2)      The bane of “a-g” completion is “D” grades.  Out of the more than five thousand transcripts that I analyzed, there were many, many hundreds that missed completion by one or two semesters of “D” grades.  Because four years of English is required and there are few options to make up a bad grade, a “D” in English is almost a college death sentence for students.  Consider a variety of options to provide students opportunities to make up these grades.

3)      For many students, 12^th grade is not very challenging.  I literally saw students who had TA, Office Assistant, Work Experience, and a non-college-prep elective on their schedule.  The research shows a huge increase in degree completion for students who take math in 12^th grade.  The need for remediation in college can often be directly linked to a non-rigorous senior year.

4)      Teacher assistant positions should be used sparingly.  Nobody has room in their schedule for a TA period.  Those who are struggling to graduate should be completing as many credits as possible.  Those who will graduate, but not qualify for college should be in courses preparing them for the workforce or community college.  Those who are headed to the university should be in Advanced Placement, dual enrollment, and other rigorous courses to prepare them for freshman year.  We can find other ways to deliver passes to classrooms than to take away academic opportunities for our students.

5)      If students are allowed to make scheduling mistakes, some of them will.  Students should be well versed in “a-g” by the end of middle school, “a-g” approved courses should be clearly delineated on registration materials, and the number of courses that are not “a-g” should be minimized.

6)      Every student should have a 4-year plan in high school that is reviewed and revisited at least once a year, preferably twice a year with an adult.  Even better would be a 6 or a 10 year plan created in middle school that goes all the way through the end of a 4-year degree.  I was told the story of a valedictorian who did not complete the a-g requirements and I reviewed the transcripts of a student who passed 6 AP courses and didn’t complete.  A regularly reviewed plan could have prevented these cases.  One of the reasons that AVID has a 95% a-g completion rate is that the AVID teacher regularly reviews progress towards college readiness.

7)      Transcripts tell the story of a school’s priorities.  It was clear that at some schools, graduation was the priority, not a-g completion.  For many students, the difference is small, but the change in their life could be huge.  A focus on a-g completion could change the lives of a significant percentage of students.

8)      Counselors are incredibly important to increasing both graduation rates and a-g completion rates.  Administrators would be best served by doing everything in their power to ensure that counselors are freed up to work directly with students as often as possible.  This sounds obvious, but is not common practice in my experience.  Research shows that nationally, counselors spend less than 60% of their time working with students.  And it’s likely that this number is even smaller in California and has gotten even lower in the last couple of year.

9)      There are two reasons why a student might miss a-g completion: 1) They took the courses and did not pass  2) They didn’t take the courses at all.  Since there are two different responses to these problems, it’s important to analyze which is causing completion issues at your school.

10)  Analyzing transcripts at a school has several benefits: 1) The school knows the actual a-g completion rate  2) The participants become very familiar with the a-g rules  3) Actions can be taken to prevent future “almost completers” and 4) Barriers to completion can be identified and fixed.

What have you seen as barriers to students being prepared for college?

  Answer in the comments section below.