In CUNYfirst, the terms active student and enrolled student are used interchangeably. This is a mistake. An active student is not necessarily an enrolled student.
Active Student
The term 'active' student is derived from the student's academic program (ACAD_PROG). All students must have an academic program and the status (PROG_STATUS) of that program is derived from the last action (PROG_ACTION) in the academic program stack. An action of matriculation, quick admit and readmit will change the PROG_STATUS to active ('AC'); completion will change the status to 'CM'; cancellation will change the status to 'CN'. Some actions do not change the status. These include data change, program change and plan change. CUNYfirst uses five statuses below:
| Field Value | Translate Name |
|---|---|
| AC | Active |
| CM | Completed |
| CN | Cancelled |
| DC | Discontinued |
| DM | Dismissed |
Term-Activated Student
A student can be term-activated only when the academic program is active. Term activation creates the STDNT_CAR_TERM record and the student will have one of these records for each term of activation. This record maintains a running total of all credits, academic levels, GPAs, etc. for the student's career. One useful field in the STDNT_CAR_TERM record is UNT_TAKEN_PRGRSS. If this field is greater than zero, then the student is enrolled in one or more credit-bearing classes. The system totals the number of credits from class enrollment. If a student is enrolled in a three-credit class, UNT_TAKEN_PRGRSS will equal three; enrollment in four three-credit classes will yield a value of twelve. A student with a value greater than zero in this field means that this active student is also enrolled. If you are trying to determine whether a student is enrolled for the term, checking UNT_TAKEN_PRGRSS is the first step. If however a student is enrolled in non-credit classes only and that student should be included in the enrolled-student count, it would be necessary to go to the next level.
Enrolled Student
Enrollment is a class creates the STDNT_ENRL record. One of these records is created for each class in which the student enrolls or waitlists. Also, if a student enrolls in a class and subsequently drops that class, the record does not disappear, but the status, STDNT_ENRL_STATUS, will change to dropped. Therefore, it is imperative to check the STDNT_ENRL_STATUS for the value of 'E' (enrolled). A student may have many enrollment records but if none of those records has a status of enrolled (STDNT_ENRL_STATUS = 'E'), then the student is not enrolled for the term. The three statuses have shown below:
| Field Value | Translate Name |
|---|---|
| E | Enrolled |
| D | Dropped |
| W | Waitlisted |
Active Student vs. Term Activated Student vs. Enrolled Student
To reiterate: A student is active in the system when the student's academic program is active. In order to have an academic program student has to have a career. Once active in a program, a student can be term activated. Once activated in a term, a student can enroll. The academic program (ACAD_PROG) owns the activation record (STDNT_CAR_TERM) and the activation record owns the enrollment (STDNT_ENRL) record. An active students is enrolled for the term if the STNDT_CAR_TERM.UNT_TAKEN_PRGRSS is greater than zero or there is one or more enrolled classes, STDNT_ENRL.STDNT_ENRL_STATUS = 'E'.
The image below has described the flow of an active student enrolled in course(s):
