PLAN EOS Helps Students, Colleges Find Each Other

With student consent, PLAN EOS accesses information about tenth-grade students who take PLAN^®, ACT’s assessment for high-school sophomores. Colleges use the information to send targeted mailings just as the students are beginning to think about career interests and college choices. Programs serving underrepresented populations also use PLAN EOS to find students who might benefit from their services.

It’s more than just waiting for a palace official to bring a glass slipper, though. When students opt to participate in EOS, they take the first step in their own college search process.

“From the beginning, the purpose of EOS has been to find ways to provide access and opportunity by allowing institutions to develop relationships with a wide variety of high school students,” said Larry Erenberger, senior consultant in ACT’s Educational Services area.

ACT first offered PLAN EOS in 1988. That year 50 institutions participated. The numbers have grown steadily ever since.

“Just in January this year, we performed 363 search programs for 188 institutions,” said ACT EOS Coordinator Lorie Suter. “That’s getting close in one month to what we did in all of 2002.”

The growth is easy to explain. The EOS information is specific, timely, and customized to each college’s needs.

“Every year we learn more and refine our participation,” said Sam Vande Weerd, director of admissions at Central College in Pella, Iowa.

The effort has paid off. After four years of targeting high school sophomores, this year Central College welcomed its largest freshman class in 15 years.

“PLAN EOS made us better able to target younger students,” Vande Weerd said. It also gave Central College name recognition among those students when they were ready to apply to colleges.

“Institutions are contacting students earlier and earlier, and I think students are thinking about their educational plans earlier than, certainly, I ever dreamed of,” said Suter. “I think schools want to establish a relationship. Whether they take any action on mailings they receive, students seem to remember which colleges contacted them. It makes them feel valued.”

Administered in the fall semester of tenth grade, PLAN collects student information concerning education and career plans, in addition to scores in English, mathematics, reading, and science. Colleges use the information to develop recruitment mailings, and ACT helps them finalize their search criteria. Mailing information can be delivered to colleges as early as the February following the test, while the students are still sophomores.

ACT has built in safeguards to protect student privacy. Students must choose to participate—about 87 percent typically do. Participating colleges sign confidentiality agreements that strictly limit the use of the information. Although searches can be conducted using scores as a criterion, individual student scores are not divulged.

For more information on PLAN EOS, contact ACT’s Educational Opportunity Service at 319/337-1350 or 319/337-1600.