For incoming first-year students at four-year and two-year institutions
The College Student Inventory (CSI)
Used by more than 1,400 institutions and completed by more than 2.6 million students nationwide, the College Student Inventory (CSI) is the leading tool for early identification and early intervention with your newest students. The CSI assesses each student in the incoming class using the leading noncognitive indicators of college student success. You and your colleagues receive detailed information about each student’s academic and non-academic motivations, areas of risk, receptivity to specific student services, and plans for re-enrollment.
This survey can be administered prior to the start of the first term or within the first few weeks of class, providing you with data to make interventions more meaningful and relevant, before a student begins disengaging. The CSI results enable you to:
- Increase student yield by incorporating data-informed communications matching students’ needs and interests with specific campus resources.
- Use pre-enrollment analytics to identify at risk students for timely and effective outreach and intervention.
- Gain immediate access to nationally normed data (individual and cohort reports) identifying student’s strengths, challenges, and levels of receptivity to various campus support services.
- Inform advising meetings and student programming with a list of top recommendations by student, cohort and for specific sub-populations.
- Implement data-informed outreach and interventions for an entire cohort and/or targeted campus defined populations.
The Mid-Year Student Assessment (MYSA)
The MYSA is the post-assessment to the College Student Inventory, providing an updated profile of each student’s specific areas of growth and individual satisfaction with their student experience. The MYSA examines the non-cognitive, motivational needs of your students at the mid-point of their first year and shows you how to adjust your interventions to meet students’ current needs and receptivity to assistance.
You can administer this follow-up assessment at the end of the first term or at the beginning of the second term. The MYSA results allow you to:
- Identify changes in students’ academic and social needs and concerns, providing a springboard for mid-year action planning and follow-up.
- Determine where there are gaps between students’ receptivity to support services at the beginning of the year and students’ actual usage of services by mid-year.
- Pinpoint the college completion plans of students at mid-year: You learn which students expect to complete their degrees through your campus, transfer to another institution, withdraw, or are unsure of their plans for the next term.
- Determine which campus services students utilize the most.
- Provide updates on individual student’s receptivity to campus services at mid-year.
Download the First-Year Student Motivation Report
What are the needs, challenges, and priorities for first-year college students? Find out in the National First-Year Students and Their Motivation to Complete College Report. You will learn their attitudes on finishing college, top areas of assistance, desire for career assistance, and more.
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Details regarding the CSI and MYSA
The CSI and MYSA can be administered to incoming undergraduate, graduate, transfer, adult and online students at four-year and two-year institutions.
Institutions typically administer the CSI as part of a checklist after admittance, during new student orientation (online or in-person), as part of a student seminar course, or within the first few weeks of the term.
The MYSA is administered toward the end of the first term or early the following term. Institutions may also choose to administer this assessment at the end of the summer term for first-time students who completed the CSI earlier in the summer.
All of the information collected by the CSI and MYSA are available to you immediately in our secure, password-protected online dashboard, the Retention Data Center. The Retention Data Center houses individual reports, standard and customizable summary reports, along with a wealth of client resources for planning and interventions.
The data and reports can be exported and imported into your CRM system for identification of students’ needs and risk factors.
A few examples of interventions used by our campus partners:
- Identify those with high overall risk index and use this data for retention benchmark indictors/monitoring student persistence and retention.
- Identify students with low commitment to college to consider one-on-one conversation with each student to understand the underlying concern and provide applicable referral(s).
- Easily identify those with a high desire to transfer and consider re-recruitment strategies.
The CSI includes scales organized under three categories:
- Academic Motivation
- General Coping Skills
- Receptivity to Support Services
The MYSA scales are organized in four primary categories:
- Student Information
- Motivation Assessment
- Student Needs and Interests
- Institutional Impressions
To help you focus and prioritize your campus outreach to your newest students, the CSI and MYSA include comprehensive data at the individual and summary cohort levels.
The CSI and MYSA surveys allow you to:
- Incorporate institution-specific data for additional analysis
- Secure access of specific reports to designated colleagues
- Customize your survey and student reports with campus-specific resources
The Second-Year Student Assessment™ is designed to be administered prior to, during, or immediately following the first term of the second year of college. Institutions may choose to administer the survey as early as the end of the freshman year.
“The retention committee notes that in our three semesters of working with the RMS Plus, we have only truly explored the Student Retention Predictor (SRP), as it allows us to synthesize and put to effective use data we have collected from students but never acted on. The SRP has given our campus an effective way to evaluate our students and strategize retention interventions. The committee also acknowledges that the College Student Inventory (CSI) provides a wealth of additional data that has yet to be used to its fullest potential at Rockhurst. It is our hope to continue to develop creative strategies with existing resources to better utilize these tools.”
“Continuing a high level of communication with academic advisors and ensuring that each student has a written academic plan are some areas we’ll be focusing on, along with helping students to deal with shifts in their relationships, especially in residence halls. We also want to help students think more about their career, internship experiences, and service learning in our Vocational Discernment Seminar. Most importantly, the data from this assessment are helping to inform our core curriculum revision for the university.”
Additional Solutions for Student Success
RNL Student Retention Predictor™
Identify student retention risk factors through advanced analytics.
RNL Satisfaction-Priorities Assessments™
Identify priorities for student retention and campus planning with these assessments for students, staff, and parents.