Using the Undergraduate Applicant Database

  1. When looking for Admissions data, check the "applicants" table first. It is the main data warehouse table and contains most of the information that is typically requested. It has a little information from most of the other Admissions Warehouse tables.

  2. Two weeks after a semester begins, Admissions data for that semester is no longer updated. It is "frozen" or copied until the end of the academic year. This is important when verifying data that is pulled. If the data doesn't match for a particular applicant don't forget to check when his record was last updated.

  3. The SAT test scores are on the "applicants" table in addition to the SAT table. The difference is that the scores on the applicant table are the always the ones used to determine how a student is reviewed and are usually official. The SAT table has ALL SAT scores both official and non-official.

  4. Admissions reviews students based on SAT scores not ACT. For those students taking ACT tests only, we convert their ACT score over to an equivalent SAT. The converted ACT is then placed on the SAT table too! Is is easy to recognize an ACT that has been converted over to an SAT. When it is converted we add a '1' to it. This does not significantly alter their score but still allows us to quickly identify it.

    Example:

If an applicant only takes the ACT and receives the following scores: Verbal 27 Math 30
We convert the score over to an equivalent SAT to get: Verbal 620 Math 670
We then add another 1 to each to change them to get: Verbal 621 Math 671

This is helpful when doing statistics on scores and also saves you from having to join to the ACT table to get their scores.

  • Tables "letters" and "comments" are very large and take a long time to create. In an effort to reduce the run time for AIS, Admissions has agreed not to pull this information weekly like the other files. It is pulled only once each semester just before the file is "frozen".

  • The "SAMX" data listed on the "applicants" table represents the most recent Admissions information. The "Matrix" table includes this information but also shows all of the entries, not just the most recent. This is important because in most cases you will need the 'SAMX' information and since it is on the main file (applicants) you don't need to merge the two tables together.