Where Are They?

Tracking Student Progress to Degree

To provide students with useful advice as they travel the long and twisted road to the PhD, advisors need to know where students are on that road, the benchmarks they’ve met, and the ones they’ve yet to meet. A student tracking system can be an invaluable tool in this effort.

If your department or graduate school doesn’t already have a tracking system or if you want your own personal tracking system, this Excel prototype (Office 2003 format) or this Access prototype (Office 2007 format) can help. You can either use them as they are or modify them to meet your needs.

If your department wants to develop its own system, The National Academies’ Basic Design Parameters of a Longitudinal Tracking System for Doctoral Students has some useful advice.

Also helpful may be examples of what other universities have done including:
Brown University
Florida State University
University of Michigan.

Available commercial student tracking systems include:
Hobsons EMT Retain
Checklist