Students register for courses and enroll in plans: majors, minors, etc. Typically, enrollment is reported singularly with student headcount as the unit of analysis. Enrollment can also be reported with student plan count as the unit of analysis. Since every student is enrolled in a plan (one at least, multiple are possible), enrollment here is reported as student plan counts. This measure is especially helpful when evaluating the number of current and new majors/minors for a given department in the upcoming semester.
Users can evaluate enrolled student plan counts across a variety of filters, including Department, Plan, and Plan Type (major, emphasis/specialization, minor). Note that unless a specific plan is indicated, enrollment figures reported are that of all student plan counts on record, as opposed to the singular measure of distinct student headcounts. As a result, students with more than one major, minor, etc. are reported with as many plans as the student's record indicates for that week's extract.
As an example, suppose there are three departments: the School of Awe, the Department of Fun and the Department of Wow. For the upcoming semester, three students are registered for courses—and enrolled in their respective student plans:
- Student A is an undergraduate student with two majors: Major FUN, Major WOW.
- Student B is an undergraduate student with a major and a minor: Major WOW, Minor AWE.
- Student C is a doctoral student whose degree program is in the Department of Awe: AWEPHD.
Based upon these three students and their respective student plans, some case scenarios follow given the filters employed:
- If no filters are indicated, the enrollment total will report 5, which is number of majors/minors for these three students. Note that this student plan count for enrollment (5 plans) differs from the corresponding student headcount for enrollment (3 distinct students).
- If Plan Type = MAJ (major), enrollment = 4 (three undergraduate plans and one graduate plan). Similarly, if Plan Type = MIN (minor), enrollment = 1 (Student B minors in Awe).
- If Plan = WOW, enrollment = 2 (Student A and Student B have majors in Wow). Similarly, if Plan = FUN, enrollment = 1 (only Student A majors in Fun).
- If Department = AWE, enrollment = 2 (Student B minors in Awe and Student C seeks the Ph.D. in Awe).
- If Career = UGRD (undergraduate), enrollment = 4 (while there are only two undergraduate students, those two students have four plan counts).
Again, the key to this view is that the enrollment measure reported consist of student plan counts, as opposed to the traditional enrollment measure of distinct student headcounts.