MD_DStu_TermsToGraduate

Number of regular (FA, WI, SP) terms elapsed (but not necessarily completed, or even registered) since starting at Carleton, assuming the student was registered as of census day his/her first term. Although internally this number is an integer, it is discretized here into ranges appropriate for reporting. The default is 'Unknown'. This attribute is only populated for first-time students. For transfers, this attribute is set to 'Not applicable.' The reason for this is that terms-to-graduate can't be evaluated as straightforwardly for transfers, who receive varying amounts of transfer credits. To study terms-to-graduate for transfers, talk directly with the Colleague Team.

The values here are NOT RELIABLE for students whose graduating class year is < 1999.

Calculation is done using the graduation date in Colleague, not the commencement date. Reason: Although the two dates could theoretically be independently entered, and may, theoretically, differ, in fact (and in practice) when one inputs a commencement date, the graduation date is also filled in and defaults to the same month, the first of the month. Hence the commencement and graduation dates will never differ in a way that matters for IPEDS.

Terms to graduate is recalculated term by term, from the start date until graduation, at which point it stops being incremented. If the resulting name weren't so darn long, we would have called this attribute MD_DStu_TermsElapsedFromStartTermUntilGraduationTerm.

This value is mainly used internally at Carleton. IPEDS reporting, by way of contrast, uses values based on years - not terms.

Compare YearsToGraduate.

This attribute tracks history. Technically speaking, it is a type-II attribute. Cf. MD_DStu_YearsToGraduate8.

DW_TermsToGraduate

varchar(16)

16

MD_DStu_YearsToGraduate

Number of years or year parts elapsed (but not necessarily completed, or even registered) since starting at Carleton, assuming the student was registered as of census day his/her first term. The numbers here are descretized into ranges appropriate for IPEDS reporting. For transfers, this attribute is set to 'Not applicable.' The reason for this is that terms-to-graduate can't be evaluated as straightforwardly for transfers, who receive varying amounts of transfer credits. To study terms-to-graduate for transfers, talk directly with the Colleague Team.

This number is not reliable before the 'conversion' in 1992 to Colleague.

This number is recalculated year by year, from the start date until graduation, at which point it stops being incremented. If the resulting name weren't so darn long, we would have called this attribute YearsOrPartialYearsElapsedFromStartUntilGraduationDate. This figure is used, e.g., for IPEDS reporting, which classifies students into those who 1) graduate in 48 or fewer months (4 years or less), 2) 49-60 months (five years), 3) 61-72 months (six years), or others, i.e., people who don't graduate in 150% of the time normally allocated for a degree.

Calculation is done using the graduation date in Colleague, not the commencement date. Reason: Although the two dates could theoretically be independently entered, and may, theoretically, differ, in fact (and in practice) when one inputs a commencement date, the graduation date is also filled in and defaults to the same month, the first of the month. Hence the commencement and graduation dates will never differ in a way that matters for IPEDS.

If you use this for IPEDS reporting, remember to select out only first-time full-time students (attributes are available in the data warehouse for these things). And use August 31 as your as-of date for reporting (i.e., take student rows where the start date <= August 31 and end date >= August 31). Ask the data warehouse team for help doing this, if you have any questions.

Compare TermsToGraduate.

Please note that the "MD_DStu_YearsToGraduate" attribute was set up to keep history. For example, if you are reporting "as of" a date before a given student graduated, MD_DStu_YearsToGraduate will show a value of 'Not Applicable' - even if the student has actually graduated as of the present date. By way of contrast, MD_DStu_YearsToGraduate8 (which was introduced in 2011 to fulfill HERA requirements) will always show the current value. If a student has graduated, that is, there will be a value here (like "5" or "6"), even if the "as of" date for your report is before the student's graduation date.

Probably both attributes should always have worked the same (neither tracking history). But there is some utility to having both reporting options, so the different behavior should be regarded as a feature, not a bug ;-).

DW_YearsToGraduate

varchar(16)

16

MD_DStu_CarlGPARangeCumulative

Student's cummulative GPA - to two decimal places, discretized into ranges. For current students, this is current as of the end of the last term. For graduates, it is their final GPA.

BEWARE: This field defaults to 0.00 (if no GPA is available). There is, therefore, NO WAY TO DISTINGUISH DEFAULTED GPAs FROM F GPAs (i.e., GPAs reflecting a student's failing every course). Therefore it is critical, if you are reporting on this field, to filter out cases where the CarlGPARangeCumulativeAtoF equals 'Unknown.'

Note that this same data is also available in the form of letter grades (A, A-, B+, B, B-, etc.) in CarlGPARangeCumulativeAtoF. Some folks simply prefer letter grades to numeric ranges; and some reports use each. So in efforts to accommodate everyone, we provide both.

Just note that they are equivalent.

DW_CarlGPARange

varchar(16)

16

MD_DStu_Major1

First student major. To search for all students who have a given major or set of majors, use the MajorList attribute and a SQL LIKE statement. If you're not sure how to do this, ask for help from the DW team.

Defaults to 'Not Applicable' (if the major is unavailable, e.g., because the student hasn't yet started, or has not declared a major, although typically we code students who have not yet declared a major as 'undecided' for major1).

DW_Major

varchar(64)

64

MD_DStu_Major3

First student major. To search for all students who have a given major or set of majors, use the MajorList attribute and a SQL LIKE statement. If you're not sure how to do this, ask for help from the DW team.

Defaults to 'Not Applicable' (if the major is unavailable, e.g., because the student hasn't yet started, or has not declared a third major).

DW_Major

varchar(64)

64

MD_DStu_MajorList

Comma-delimited list of student majors. Use this attribute to search for all students who have a given major or set of majors, with a SQL LIKE statement. If you're not sure how to do this, ask for help from the DW team. This field should not be used as a label on a report.

DW_CommaDelimitedList

varchar(128)

128

MD_DStu_Concentration2

Second student concentration. Concentrations are like minors, but with a Carleton twist. To search for all students who have a given contration or set of concentrations, use the ConcentrationList attribute and a SQL LIKE statement. If you're not sure how to do this, ask for help from the DW team.

DW_Major

varchar(64)

64

MD_DStu_Concentration4

Fourth student concentration. Concentrations are like minors, but with a Carleton twist. To search for all students who have a given contration or set of concentrations, use the ConcentrationList attribute and a SQL LIKE statement. If you're not sure how to do this, ask for help from the DW team.

DW_Major

varchar(64)

64

MD_DStu_EnrollmentStatus

Student's current enrollment status. Default is "Not Applicable," although this value should not, in practice, be used. All students should have a status value. Values correspond to the 1-character status codes used internally in Colleague.

Note that enrollment statuses are only kept, historically, back to late 2009. Hence, for facts (e.g., grades) recorded before then will reflect the student's enrollment status as of late 2009. Generally one should not use any type-II SCD (like the enrollment status) as a filter or label in any report if the data being visualized starts before the 2010-11 academic year.

The full list of codes/status values used in Colleague as of March 2010 is:

N Non-degree (will not appear in the MD_DegreeStudent dimension)
W Voluntary Withdrawal
E Expulsion - Disciplinary
I Withdrawn
O Off-campus
C Gone, not graduated
L On Leave
F Full-time
X Waiver Senior Residency (generally due to early graduation)
R Required Leave Due to OCP
LB New-Left Before Census
G Graduated
M Military leave
P Deceased
S Suspension - Disciplinary
D Drop-Insufficient Acad Progres
NA New-Never Attended Classes

The status field is very important, because it will often be needed in order to make sense of other fields. E.g., students may have a graduating cohort year, and yet not have graduated (e.g., they may have withdrawn years ago and never finished up). If you want graduates, by graduating cohort year, then you MUST also filter on the enrollment status (taking only cases where the value = "Graduated").

Note that the Full-time status doesn't have a part-time correspondent. There is, in other words, no part-time status at Carleton, as of spring 2010 (and we don't expect one any time soon). Even people who, under rare circumstances, may carry a less than full-time-equivalent load, we mark them as full-time students.

Also note that, theoretically, there could be three separate statuses, one per academic level. But business rules prevent this, and only the undergraduate level is included in the data warehouse. If these business rules change, pick status for primary academic level.

Data quality alert: At least through 2011-12, whether a current student dies, or whether the Registrar receives word that a graduate has died, they will mark their enrollment status as deceased, i.e., using the same code (P). What this means is that the enrollment status field may in certain situations lose any record of whether the student has graduated or not. This business practice is under review.

DW_EnrollmentStatus

varchar(32)

32

MD_DStu_IsDoneLangRequirement

The purpose of this attribute is simply to note whether a student has fulfilled his/her language requirement. The value will be "yes" if he or she has. The value will be "no" otherwise.

Be careful with this attribute, because language requirements may change over time, or not apply in particular instances.

DW_YesOrNoNOTNULL

char(3)

3

MD_DStu_PrematricCreditRange

Number of pre-matriculation credits granted, broken up into ranges, 0, 1-10, 11-20, etc.

These credits are for things like AP courses, and can potentially reduce the number of credits the student must take while an actual student at Carleton.

DW_CodeDescShort

varchar(16)

16

MD_DStu_IsPOSSE

Not tracked per se Colleague currently, so everyone now is "Unknown." But if we did, this is how it would work.

"Yes" if a student is (or was) part of the POSSE program. "No" otherwise.

This attribute's value is to be considered highly confidential.

This is a so-called type-1 attribute, meaning that once it's set, it's set for all times for a given student. Some attributes only get set 'as of' a certain date, and change as history moves on, like a zipcode or a phone number, or a student status. This attribute, however, reflects an intrinsic property of a person (or their state upon entry to Carleton), and applies universally, much like a gender (well, usually) or an ethnicity.

DW_YesNoOrUnknown

varchar(7)

7

MD_DStu_TermsInOffCampusPrograms

Count of terms in an off-campus program. Used to help assess the impact of off-campus studies participation in performance, degree completion, etc.

When we count here we refactor double or triple terms (e.g., FW, AY, etc.) as multiple terms, not just as one term.

Because the counting method is volatile (we're still not absolutely sure how to do this), this field is not exposed in views like VMD_DegreeStudent.

<None>

int

MD_DStu_IsPhiBetaKappa

"Yes" if a student has been elected to Phi Beta Kappa (essentially an honors society). "No" otherwise. Pay attention to the RowStart/End and status fields when using this attribute, because typically a student is elected to Phi Beta Kappa near the end of his or her senior (sometimes Junior) year. So it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to use this field to differentiate students who are not yet graduated as of the reporting date.

DW_YesOrNoNOTNULL

char(3)

3

MD_DStu_IsSigmaXi

"Yes" if a given student has been nominated as an associate Sigma Xi member. "No" otherwise. Note that these nominations are generally made for seniors and happen only once in a student's career. So when using this attribute in queries and reports, pay attention to RowStart and RowEnd dates. Typically you will also be selecting out graduates, not current students.

The blurb about Sigma Xi is this: Sigma Xi is an honor society for scientists. Each year a few students are nominated as associate members based on their promise as scientific researchers and demonstrated research ability on comps projects and other independent research. Sigma Xi has over 100,000 members. Members and associate members receive American Scientist, a bimonthly journal. Nationally, Sigma Xi sponsors research awards and conferences.

DW_YesOrNoNOTNULL

char(3)

3

MD_DStu_IsSummaCumLaude

Self-explanatory. "Yes" if graduated summa cum laude, "no" if not. If not graduated, then "Not Applicable."

DW_YesNoOrNotApplicable

varchar(16)

16

MD_DStu_Major1Distinction

"Yes" if a student graduated with distinction in his or her first major. "No" otherwise.

Pay attention to the RowStart/End and status fields when using this attribute, because typically a student doesn't get marked as graduating with distinction until near graduation time. So it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to use this attribute to differentiate students who are not yet graduated as of the reporting date.

DW_YesNoOrNotApplicable

varchar(16)

16

MD_DStu_Major3Distinction

"Yes" if a student graduated with distinction in his or her third major. "No" otherwise.

Pay attention to the RowStart/End and status fields when using this attribute, because typically a student doesn't get marked as graduating with distinction until near graduation time. So it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to use this attribute to differentiate students who are not yet graduated as of the reporting date.

DW_YesNoOrNotApplicable

varchar(16)

16

MD_DStu_Religion1

First religious preference expressed by student (may be three). May be one of many options, including Atheist and Agnostic. If no religion is recorded for a student, then the default value is inserted: 'Unspecified'.

DW_Religion

varchar(64)

64

MD_DStu_Religion3

Third religious preference expressed by student (may be three).

DW_Religion

varchar(64)

64

MD_DStu_TermsAsVarsityAthlete

Count of terms a student has spent as a varsity athlete.

Used to analyze the effect of varsity athletic participation on a variety of things, such as graduation rate, time to graduation, cumulative GPA, and major (e.g., do athletes tend to end up in the same majors?). If more detailed information is needed than is supplied here, consult Institutional Research and Assessment, and ask about gaining access to College Sports Project (or other relevant) data.

This column is not currently populated. Everything is a zero.

<None>

int

MD_DStu_TermsOnAcadProbation

Count of terms a student was on academic probation. Normally zero, naturally.

<None>

int

MD_DStu_TermsAsHouseManager

Count of terms a student served as a house manager. Defaults to zero. Compare the TermsAsResidentAssistant attribute.

<None>

int

MD_DStu_TermsAsLanguageAssistant

Count of terms a student served as a language assistant. Defaults to zero.

This attribute is used to determine the effect of service as a language assistant on GPA and other measures.

<None>

int

MD_DStu_AuditKey

DW_AuditKey

bigint