Student biographical, running cumulative GPA, and college application data can all be imported into ADVOCATE from existing files. In general, files should be saved as Excel format—one column per field, with the first row continuing field names—and ordered correctly. From the Utilities >Import/Export, screen you can click on the Help links for more information on these formats.
For student biological data, use the following order: Student Number, Last Name, First Name,Middle Name, Social Security Number, Date of Birth, Sex, Ethnicity, Current Grade, Parent Name, Home Phone, Street, City, State, ZIP.
Student Number is required and should be unique (for all students across all years). Social Security Number can be entered with or without dashes and is not required. However, certain functions, such as importing test scores, use Social Security Number for successful operation. Sex should be M for male and F for female. Ethnicity can be words or abbreviations. Parent Name should be the full name of the custodial parents (formatted as you would a mailing label). Home Phone can include the area code, but it is not required. Street can be multi-lined, separated by carriage returns, if necessary. ZIP code can include ZIP+4, but is not required.
For Student GPA data, use the following order: Student Number, Standard GPA, Weighted or Adjusted GPA, Rank. Student Number is required and should match the Student Numbers already in ADVOCATE. This is the Primary Key that matches a GPA with the correct student. Standard GPA is the student’s standard, non-adjusted GPA. Weighted or Adjusted GPA is the student’s honors or AP-adjusted GPA. Rank is the ranking of the student relative to his or her graduating class. Both GPAs and Rank should be numerical. This import will load the Running Cumulative GPA in AVSTUDENTS.
For application data, use the following order: Student Number, College Code, GPA, SAT, College Decision, Student Action, Admission Season, Academic Year. Student Number is required and should match the Student Numbers already in ADVOCATE. The College Code field is required and should match the College Codes already in ADVOCATE. ADVOCATE comes preloaded with 5000+ colleges whose College Codes are their SAT College Code. GPA is the student’s default GPA that was reported with this application. SAT is the student’s composite SAT score reported with this application. College Decision is the decision given the student from the college.
Use the following values to ensure proper operation of charts and statistics: Admit, Deny, Wait List, and Defer. Student Action is the student’s action regarding the college’s decision of Admit.
Use the following values to ensure proper statistics: Enroll, Decline, and Withdrawn. Admission Season is the school year for which the student applied to the college. This usually, but not always, corresponds to the student’s freshman year in college. This is the year the student would enter college if admitted and enrolled. Academic Year is the school year in which the student submits the application to the college. This usually, but not always, corresponds to the student’s senior year in high school. This is the year the application is processed through the high school.
You can generally get an Excel export from your existing student information system for the data you need. Open the file in Excel and edit the data to match the specification outlined above. After the data are in the proper formats, they can be imported correctly into ADVOCATE.