A series of retention and completion initiatives are conducted annually to identify high-priority students and disseminate outreach campaigns aimed at referring, reengaging, and reenrolling these students. During the spring 2024, summer 2024, and fall 2024 semester, we piloted specialized outreach campaigns and retention interventions to high-priority populations to encourage the students to engage in specialized advising with our Student Success Specialist or attend a workshop focused on achieving academic success following an unsatisfactory midterm progress report.
Of our suite of retention and completion initiatives, the following were selected for piloting a targeted approach for high-priority students:
Midterm Progress Reports (MPR): Intervention to students that are identified as off-track (received 2 or more Unsatisfactory progress grades) for 1000- and 2000-level courses. Occurs every fall and spring semester.
GT 2801, Study Strategies Seminar: For the first time since fall 2021, GT 2801 was offered to students on academic probation, with a limited enrollment capacity of 20 students. GT 2801 provides students with the dedicated time in their schedule to learn (and utilize!) skills, strategies, and ways of thinking to support their holistic success at Georgia Tech and rebound academically. GT 2801 will be offered every spring and fall semester.
We spent the last year developing this approach through comprehensive student success data analysis, creating the organizational structure to support a high-touch individualized retention strategy, and hiring the personnel to execute this vision. With the team in place, Retention and Completion Initiatives launched the high-priority student retention strategy in Spring 2024 during our MPR campaign.
As “high-priority student” is a new target population of Georgia Tech, as defined by continuous analysis of our achievement gaps, we have not tracked students in our retention efforts in this way before now. Therefore, measures of success will look to capacity building. We will look to students reached in our targeted outreach campaign. Additionally, we will track the utilization of our Student Success Specialist by tracking referral streams from our campus partners and conversions from outreach campaign to engagement in individualized appointments or workshop attendance.
Spring 2024 Outcomes
277 high-priority advising appointments were set by 135 students, 77 of which were limited-income students.
- The most common advising topics were academic improvement strategies (n=126), academic planning (n=83), general advisement (n=25), and SAP advisement (n=24).
MPR outreach was conducted to the following student samples:
- All students receiving two or more Us in Spring 2024
- Group 1: Advising required by major (n=229)
- Group 2: Advising is not required by major (n=121)
- First-year students receiving two or more Us in both Fall 2023 and Spring 2024
- Group 3: Advising required by major (n=17)
- Group 4: Advising is not required by major (n=3)
- Group 5: Limited-income students receiving one or more Us in Spring 2024 (n=417, 77 converted to retention advising appointment)
Summer 2024 Outcomes
165 appointments between May 13 and August 1 (14 no-shows) from the following high-priority student referral streams:
- Continuing Tech Promise Retention Campaign (Referral from partners in Financial Aid and Special Scholarships)
- 21 students at-risk of losing scholarship were contacted for additional support, 5 converted to retention advising appointment
- Incoming Tech Promise Mentorship Program (Pre-FASET Advising)
- 58 students contacted for Pre-FASET advising, 8 converted to retention advising appointment
- Special Scholarships Referrals [Provost Scholars]
- 15 Provost Scholars were referred, 1 converted to retention advising appointment
- General Advisement (SAP, Probation, Academic Improvement)
- Most appointments, outside of special scholarship campaigns/referrals, came from students who were in academic distress and hoping to improve their academic performance during the summer including a targeted campaign to 11 students in MATH 1113 that were struggling in the course. Many students were hoping to meet with their academic advisors about SAP appeals but were unable to schedule through Advisor Link. These students were connected with the appropriate offices (Financial Aid and Academic Advising) and, in many instances, provided academic coaching throughout the semester.
Momentum Mentoring engaged 58 incoming Tech Promise scholars in our summer mentoring program, 30 of which were referred to First-Gen Jackets Peer Mentoring program to continue their engagement through Fall 2024.
Fall 2024 Outcomes (Underway)
The following student populations were included in an outreach campaign as an additional notification that a U has been received and to provide general knowledge about the MPR process at Georgia Tech. Additionally, as a new offering in Fall 2024, students were also invited to a workshop hosted by Retention and Completion Initiatives, “Midterm Progress Report: What It Is and How to Leverage It for Academic Success.” The workshop will be offered several times following the release of MPRs to students, both in-person and virtually.
Population 1: High-priority students that made one or more U (n=115)
1A) Tech Promise scholars
1B) Achieve Atlanta scholars
Population 2: Transfer students that made one or more U (n=785)
Population 3: First-year students that made two or more Us (n=513)
Population 4: First-year students that made a U in GT 1000 (n=9)
Throughout the year we are finetuning each intervention protocol and crafting language to reach students that are known to be at higher risk of academic challenge based of analysis of our institutional achievement gaps. Additionally, we actively developing a suite of student resources, like our midterm workshop series, to meet students struggling academically with just-in-time resources.
We also established a working group with representatives from Undergraduate Admission, the Office of Undergraduate Education, Enrollment Management, and Institute Research and Planning to develop a model specific to our institution to identify limited income students and establish data protection safeguards
Our approach at targeting limited income students was hindered by delays associated with the launch of the new FAFSA application at the federal level and reformulation of Pell-grant eligibility. As the identification of limited income students using any federal indicator grew increasingly problematic, we shifted our focus in Summer 2024 to needs-based scholarship recipients. We will continue to focus on efforts on Tech Promise scholars and Achieve Atlanta scholars as we build capacity for individualized support with our new Student Success Specialist.
We would appreciate any advice or resources on best practices for accessing student financial indicators to support academic success and progress. What trainings do other USG institutions require? Who are the key personnel given access to this information?
