The Obama Administration as set a goal for the United States to once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.  Research indicates that lack of appropriate academic preparation, and awareness of what constitutes preparation, are major reasons why students do not attend college. Strategies to increase students’ awareness of college requirements and to encourage them to take the necessary courses may be an effective way to increase access to college and reduce college-going gaps among socioeconomic and racial/ethnic groups.

 Under a 3-year Institute for Education Sciences (IES) Research Grant, MPR Associates, in partnership with the University of California Office of the President, has further developed the Transcript Evaluation Service (TES), an intervention that offers students, counselors, and school administrators data tools concerning student preparedness for college, and provides outreach services to support counselors and administrators in using the data for college advising and school-level planning. TES has been piloted in 150 high-poverty California high schools. The IES grant supported a formative evaluation examining implementation and use of the data tools, including barriers to use.  Additionally, the research team has conducted trend analyses on selected outcome measures in TES schools and a comparison group of high schools. Outcomes examined include the percentage of 12th grade students who successfully meet admissions requirements for California universities, and the percent of graduating seniors who apply, are accepted to, and enroll in a California university.

The authors presented preliminary results from Year 1 of the study at the 2009 APPAM conference.  This proposed presentation would present final results from the 3-year study