2018 Higher Education Research Digest - Explore ACT Data to Help Inform Recruitment, Enrollment, and Success Strategies - Three New Publicly-Available ACT Databases

Oct 9, 2026

2018 Higher Education Research Digest introduces three interactive ACT databases designed to strengthen recruitment, enrollment, and student success planning. It explains an updated Enrollment Management Database tracking ACT-tested cohorts from high school through two years of college using National Student Clearinghouse retention and transfer data. It also describes the Ten-Year Trends Database for cohort change over 2008–2017, and the College Completion Database to support completion-focused decisions.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages36

Reading Time1 h 31 min

AccessFree to download

Explore ACT Data to Help Inform Recruitment, Enrollment, and Success Strategies: Three New Publicly-Available ACT Databases

Enrollment Management Database

Example Scenario Use Case

Ten-Year Trends Database

Example Scenario Use Case

2018 Higher Education RESEARCH DIGEST 2 Explore ACT Data to Help Inform Recruitment, Enrollment, and Success Strategies: Three New Publicly-Available ACT Databases 6 Building a Diverse and College-Ready Class: The Power of Social and Emotional Learning Skills 11 New Understanding of High School Rigor and College Success Predictions: An Empirically-Derived Index of High School Academic Rigor 14 Sticking to the Plan: Who Is Likely to Declare a Major That Is Consistent with Their Intentions? 18 College and Career Ready: How Much Academic Preparation Is Needed for Middle-Skills Jobs? 22 They May Be First but Will They Last? Retention and Transfer Behavior of First-Generation Students 27 Academic Readiness and Discipline: Two Factors Related to Degree Completion 32 Fair to Compare: A Guide to the 2018 ACT/SAT Concordance EXPLORE ACT DATA TO HELP INFORM RECRUITMENT, ENROLLMENT, AND SUCCESS STRATEGIES: THREE NEW PUBLICLY-AVAILABLE ACT DATABASES The inaugural Higher Education Research Digest was released in 2017 along with the Enrollment Management Database, a tool assisting enrollment managers, admissions personnel, and other college administrators with student recruitment, enrollment, and success strategies. For this second edition of the Digest, the Enrollment Management Database has been updated with the 2017 ACT-Tested Graduating Cohort. ACT is also pleased to announce the addition of two more databases: Ten-Year Trends Database and College Completion Database. The three databases—which are available in an interactive, Tableau environment—are described below in more detail, highlighting an example of the research insights you can capture from each tool. The three databases are available for access at: [act.org](act.org)[ ](act.org)/researchdigest. Enrollment Management Database The Enrollment Management Database includes data on multiple, recent ACT-tested high school graduating classes matched to college enrollment and second-year retention data obtained from the National Student Clearinghouse. It enables users to follow a graduating class from high school through the first two years of college. The database currently includes information on the 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 ACT-tested high school graduating classes and is structured into five topical areas: student background, college preferences, score sending behavior, enrollment, and retention and transfer behavior. The database allows users to answer questions of interest to them. For example, the degree to which students’ college preferences align with actual behavior may help inform recruitment strategies at your institution. An Enrollment Management Database User Guide is also provided on the database landing page. Example Scenario Use Case Perhaps you work in the Office of Enrollment Management at a public university in Missouri and are interested in examining the relationship between students’ college location preferences and actual enrollment behavior to help refine your student search criteria and recruitment strategies. Filtering by state and grad class year for students who directly enrolled in college, the tool provides the count and percentage of ACT-tested students in Missouri who indicated a preference to attend college out-of-state, in-state, and missing, as well as the breakdown in terms of actual enrollment. As shown in Figure 1, 22% of students indicated a preference to attend 2 | 2018 Higher Education Research Digest Figure 1. Screenshot from the Enrollment Management Database out-of-state. Among those students, 50% actually enrolled in an out-of-state institution. On the other hand, 60% indicated a preference to attend a college in-state, of which 90% did. However, these results may vary by student characteristics such as academic preparation level. Therefore, the user can drill down further, filtering by ACT Composite score band (or by other student characteristics) . Ten-Year Trends Database The Ten-Year Tr

FAQs

What are the three ACT databases introduced in the digest?

The digest introduces the Enrollment Management Database, the Ten-Year Trends Database, and the College Completion Database.

What does the Enrollment Management Database track?

It tracks multiple recent ACT-tested high school graduating classes matched to college enrollment and second-year retention and transfer behavior, following students from high school through the first two years of college.

How can the Ten-Year Trends Database support recruitment and planning?

It helps forecast changes in student demographics and college preferences by examining how the ACT-tested population has evolved across recent cohorts, including trends in intended majors.

Oct 9, 2026

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