Decision types

Kathy Steinman

We have both an early decision process (app deadline Dec 1) as well as a regular decision process (app deadline Jan 15). We are considering adding decision types to align with the two deadlines - meaning we would have Early Decision Accept, Early Decision Deny, Early Decision Waitlist AND Regular Decision Accept, Regular Decision Deny, Regular Decision Wait List. 

Part of me thinks having all these decision types will litter the database with unnecessary decision types as we can gather the data we need based on Decision + School Decision Date (anyone with a school decision date = to December would clearly be an early decision and anyone with a decision date = to January would be a regular decision). However, I recognize that it would be visually easier to digest in our reports if we had clear decision terminology front-facing. Does anyone have an opinion on this or have experience one way or the other they could share?

Thanks in advance!

Coco Parham

I was thinking the same thing, except I was thinking of adding an admin field, that I could pull from the candidate list, of those who applied early action. That way it keeps the decisions to accept, deny, waitlist.

Do you think that would work?

Kathy Steinman

I didn't mention it in my original post, but worth mentioning now, we added a checklist step item titled 'Early Decision Process' under the Misc. section and when Candidates elect to be part of the ED process, we mark that item as Complete. It is an internally facing checklist item (so parents don't see it on their side) but it allows us to keep track in a clean way (without having to use up another custom field) Candidates that want Early Decision. That has proven to be very helpful in tracking Candidates on the Early Decision track. This leads me to think that I don't see a good reason to create another set of decision types for Early Decision because I already have a clean Early Decision list. But I'm hearing from my team that some of them would like the added visual benefit of begin able to see "Early Decision Accept' as a decision type on a report. 

David Lee

Good idea.  Thanks for sharing this tip.