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Nieto and Bode describe tracking as something that is inequitable and that, "Tracking may begin at the very earliest grades, and decisions about student placement are sometimes made on tenuous grounds. These can include social indicators, such as information provided on registration forms, initial interviews with parents, and teachers’ prior knowledge about specific students. Research over many years has confirmed that tracking is frequently linked with racial, ethnic, and social class differences" (93 Nieto & Bode). I chose this topic because I feel that tracking is something that affected me in my early years of school when my parents were a low income household and when my understanding of the english language was poor.

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This article serves as a basic introduction to tracking. It explains how higher performing students are given to better teachers and how lower performing students are given to the least qualified teachers.

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The term tracking refers to a method used by many secondary schools to group students according to their perceived ability, IQ, or achievement levels. Students are placed in high, middle, or low tracks in an effort to provide them with a level of curriculum and instruction that is appropriate to their needs. The practice of tracking began in the 1930s and has been the subject of intense controversy in the past 20 years.

Opponents argue that this model is detrimental to students, especially in the low and middle tracks largely comprising low-income and minority students (Slavin, 1990). Instructional methods tend to be more engaging, reflective, and challenging in high tracks, whereas low tracks emphasize good behavior and menial skills. Moreover, low-track students are often given the least qualified teachers and high-track students receive the best teachers, a practice that exacerbates the achievement gap and perpetuates a cycle of failure for low-achieving students (Education Trust, 2004). Tracking, therefore, unfairly isolates low-income and minority students in what amounts to a resegregation of students within schools (Oakes and Guiton, 1995).

Opponents further argue that, regardless of ability, students will generally attain higher achievement in more-rigorous classes (Hallinan, 2000) Even students who fail in Advanced Placement courses have a better chance of earning a college degree, simply by virtue of having been exposed to a challenging curriculum (Adelman, 1999).

Advocates of tracking argue that this model efficiently addresses the different achievement needs of students. Successful students are sent to high tracks while struggling students are assigned to low tracks, with the expectation that all students can perform according to their ability and motivation levels. It is also expected that students can move up and down the track ladder as their achievement levels change. Tracking, they argue, also makes teaching easier, as teachers can focus their lessons on one level of instruction only. Finally, defenders of tracking argue that research has failed to make a convincing case against tracking as findings show that high-track students would be held back and low-track students would not necessarily benefit from detracking (Loveless, 2002).

Whether right or wrong, tracking is a generally accepted and a central part of the culture of secondary schools and will not be easily abolished. Schools that have attempted to end tracking have faced significant barriers. Parents of high-track students have resisted it, arguing that detracking would harm their children by taking teachers' attention away from them. Many teachers, especially high-track teachers, have also opposed a change that would make teaching admittedly more challenging.
NASSP Guiding Principles

NASSP strongly supports the notion that high achievement is a goal for all students.

NASSP recognizes that educators have a moral imperative to pursue practices that promote equity and excellence. All students have the right to have access to a rigorous curriculum regardless of family income level and race.

NASSP advocates for schools to provide an environment where students are encouraged to take challenging courses.

NASSP encourages schools to provide academic and social-support services, such as co-teaching or tutoring, for students who are struggling.

NASSP is committed to building the capacity of schools to create personalized learning environments, where all students are valued and entitled to pursue their interests.

NASSP believes that, while tracking was originally intended for practical pedagogical purposes, its unintended consequences make it an obsolete practice in the context of high expectations for all.

In Breaking Ranks II, Strategies for Leading High School Reform (2004) and in Breaking Ranks in the Middle: Strategies for Leading Middle Level Reform (2006), NASSP argues that improving schools involves finding alternatives to tracking by eliminating low-level courses and opening challenging courses to all.

Recommendations
NASSP urges principals to:

Create a culture of high expectations for all students. Rather than assuming that only some students need preparation for post secondary education, counsel all students for the possibility that they will seek higher education at some point in their lives.

Provide a safe and personalized learning environment for each student.

Provide early intervention strategies in reading/language arts, math and other core areas for students achieving below grade level.

Identify a set of essential learnings in which students must demonstrate competency in order to move to the next level.

Provide open enrollment for academically rigorous programs such as International Baccalaureate (IB), Advanced Placement (AP) and honors classes, and provide tutoring and other instructional support to enhance chances for success.

Provide focused professional development for teachers to enable them to acquire the skills and dispositions needed in detracked schools. These include high expectations for all, differentiated instruction, cooperative learning, and complex instruction.

Organize students in heterogeneous learning groups; diversity can help students learn from each other.

Reorganize the traditional department structure in order to integrate the school's curriculum to the extent possible.

Involve families at an early stage in planning and implementing heterogeneous groups. Educate families about alternatives to tracking by inviting them to observe classes, reporting results during the phase in state. Reassure parents who oppose detracking by showing how their children will also benefit from the changes.

Provide additional time for struggling students. Interventions designed to remediate students who score two to three years below grade level in certain disciplines and in reading should not be construed as tracking. These students need immediate, intensive accelerated instruction in the form of additional time.

References
Adelman, Clifford, 1999. Answers in the Toolbox: Academic Intensity, Attendance Patterns, and Bachelor's Degree Attainment. U.S. Department of Education, Jessup, MD.

Camblin, Sharon, Gullatt, Yvette, Klopott, Shayna, 2003. Strategies for Success: Six Stories of Increasing College Access. Pathways to College Network, Boston, MA. http://www.pathwaystocollege.net/webarticles/pdf/strategiesforsuccess.pdf

Hallinan, Maureen T., 2000. Ability Group Effects on High School Learning Outcomes.

Loveless, Tom, 2002. The Tracking and Ability Grouping Debate, Thomas Fordham Foundation. NASSP, 2004, Breakthrough High Schools: You Can Do It Too, Reston,VA

Oakes, Jeannie and Guiton, Gretchen, 1995. "Matchmaking: The Dynamics of High School Tracking Decisions." American Educational Research Journal Vol. 32, No. 1:3-33

Slavin, R.E. 1990. "Achievement Effects of Ability Grouping in Secondary Schools: A Best-Evidence Synthesis." Review of Educational Research. Vol. 80: 471-499

The Education Trust, 2004. The Real Value of Teachers, Thinking K-16, Vol. 8, Issue 1. Winter 2004. The Education Trust, Inc. Washington, DC.

Wheelock, Anne, October 1992. "The case for Untracking", in Untracking for Equity, Volume 50, Number 2, p. 6-10, ASCD.

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Adopted July 13, 2006

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Tracking and Ability Grouping in Middle Level and High Schools

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Issue The term tracking refers to a method used by many secondary schools to group students according to their perceived ability, IQ, or achievement levels. Students are placed in high, middle, or low tracks in an effort to provide them with a level of curriculum and instruction that is appropriate to their needs.

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This article discusses the pros and cons of tracking but it concludes with the fact that tracking can either do good or cause so much harm to students if it is not done right.

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The fact of the matter is that some students learn more quickly than others and some students need more individualized attention. In order to accommodate the differing needs of their students, many schools started to adopt a tracking system, separating students by academic ability into different groups for certain subjects or for all subjects. This type of program is sometimes called ability grouping (though these are technically two different things) and it is a hotly debated issue in public schools. Before you decide whether tracking might be a good option for your child, take a moment to learn what it is as well as the pros and cons of this type of system.
What is Tracking or Ability Grouping?
Also referred to as phasing or streaming, tracking is a system in which students are divided into classes based on their overall achievement. Students are ranked as being average, normal, or below average and they are divided into classes with students of the same achievement level. Tracking has been used in American public schools for nearly a century and it has changed and developed a great deal during that time. In the early years, tracking was a response to growing numbers of immigrant children coming into the public school system. The goal was to provide those children with an education that was catered to their limited understanding of the English language and their limited preparation, as compared to native students. What ended up happening, however, was a form of internal segregation within the American public school system.

Today, tracking in American public schools is less strict, in most cases, and it is often used just for certain subjects or classes, not for the entire educational system. Many secondary schools use the concept of tracking to provide different levels of difficulty for certain courses, dividing students into basic, honors, and college-preparation groups. Some schools use a variation on tracking called ability grouping which is less formal and less permanent than tracking. Ability groups are formed within individual classrooms and they never last longer than a year. They are also assigned by the teacher, not by the school system, according to the particular subject or for individual lessons. For example, during a math lesson, the teacher might divide the students into ability groups based on those who need to review basic facts before addressing the assignment and those who are ready for a more challenging assignment.

This TEDTalk makes the case for ending tracking.
The Advantages of Tracking
The fact that tracking comes in so many shapes and forms makes it difficult to determine whether it is a good or a bad thing. While tracking has been losing strength in the United States, it is an integral part of modern education in other countries such as the Netherlands. When used correctly, tracking enables the teacher to cater his lessons toward the specific ability level of the students in his class. In low and normal achievement level students, this can help to ensure that the students learn the material at their own pace without falling behind. In terms of scholastic achievement for these individuals, tracking has not been found to make a significant difference. For above-average achievers, however, tracking has been shown to produce substantial gains - students who learn more quickly are allowed to do so and they are challenged according to their ability level.

When tracking is divided by subject, it enables students to receive instruction targeted to their ability level for each subject. For example, a student who is highly gifted in math skills can attend math classes with the more advanced math students but if he has lower-level English skills, he can attend an English class that caters to that ability level. Not only does this help to ensure that students continue to learn at their own ability level, but it may also help to address the self-esteem issues that sometimes come with placing low achieving students in classrooms with high achievers. Many studies have shown that self-esteem is correlated with academic achievement so, in theory, tracking should be a system that promotes academic success. There is, however, the possibility that placing a student in a lower track could lower his self-esteem - each case is different.

This video "explores the history, practice, perils, and alternatives to grouping students for classroom instruction according to their perceived abilities".
The Disadvantages of Tracking
Though tracking systems have many potential benefits, there are also some drawbacks to consider. For example, it is not uncommon for tracking systems to encourage a sort of segregation within the school system. It has been found that many low-track classes are comprised of minority and low-income students while the upper tracks tend to be dominated by students who come from higher socioeconomic standing. During the 1980s, Jeannie Oaks brought to light a theory that many low-income and minority students were placed in lower tracks even when it wasn't a reflection of their academic abilities. She addressed the issue of "industrial schooling", suggesting that upper-class students received more educational opportunities while lower-income students were funneled into vocational programs and given limited educational opportunities.

Another potential disadvantage of the tracking system is that by dividing students into a group by their academic ability, the educational system may cause those students to self-label themselves as inferior to upper track students. This leads to a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy as the students experience lower self-esteem due to this separation which, in turn, can lead to reduced academic performance. There is also the fact that many students who enter ability groups or tracking systems end up staying there throughout the course of their academic career - their abilities are not always reevaluated between grades to determine whether a change needs to be made. Some detractors from the tracking system also suggest that teachers of low achieving students have lower expectations of their students and they do not provide the challenge and the drive needed to push those students to improve themselves.

This video offers an overview of educational tracking.
Additional Factors to Consider
When used properly, tracking or ability grouping in schools can be very successful but it is important to understand the limitations of this type of system. The actual composition of the tracks is very important and it is difficult to create homogenous classrooms since students inherently tend to learn at different rates, regardless of their achievement level or ability. In order to keep a tracking system working as it should, it needs to be reassessed occasionally so students can be regrouped if needed. Another factor that affects the success of a tracking program is the degree to which the curriculum is modified for each group. It is important for all students to be challenged and to be encouraged to improve, though improvement looks different for different students. It is up to the teacher to determine the proper degree to which individual students can and should be challenged to produce growth.

When it comes to the issue of tracking in schools, there is no clear right or wrong. In cases where tracking is successful, students and teachers benefit from having a more homogenous group of students - this can lead to increased educational effectiveness and higher test scores. In other cases, however, tracking may cause lower-achieving students to miss out on the opportunity to learn with (and from) higher achieving students - this can lead to increased inequality. When choosing a school for your child, it is important to consider the issue of tracking on a case-by-case basis to determine whether it is being used effectively and, if so, whether it might be a good option for your child.

Questions? Contact us on Facebook @publicschoolreview.

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The Pros and Cons of Tracking in Schools - PublicSchoolReview.com

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Tracking was once the standard of public education in the United States but today there is a great deal of controversy regarding its relevance. Consider the pros and cons of tracking to decide whether it might be a good option for your child.

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How One School Stopped Tracking Students

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How One School Stopped Tracking Students

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This article is very interesting because it discusses how one school took the steps to end tracking at their school. For example, they did this by adding ELA as extra classes and not as something that would replace another important class like math. This put non english speakers on a more equal playing field.

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It only takes eight minutes to understand how a system that groups students by their predetermined "ability" can limit their potential. In 2002, WNYC's Radio Rookies project featured New York City student Jaimita Haskell's story " Tracking." In it, Haskell described how it made her feel to be placed in mainstream classes while her peers were fast-tracked into advanced courses.

"I figured, this is where I was put," she said. "This is where I should be. I'll just graduate at the top of the bottom."

But when a history teacher vouched for her potential, she got a taste of advanced coursework. She saw the newer books. She participated in more vigorous discussion and work. She kept up and believed she could continue to do so.

It wasn't long, however, before Haskell was kicked out due to "overcrowding."

"I was mentally sick from the roller coaster," she said. "It brought me to the top, where I could see myself going to a good college. Then ... it dropped me to the bottom, where I could see myself going nowhere."

It's been 17 years since Haskell told her story on the radio, but her experience remains common across the United States (and worldwide), where schools continue to track students based on measures of ability like past grades, test scores and whether or not they were placed in gifted programs at a young age.

After decades of research indicating that tracking contributes to widened opportunity gaps and more segregated classrooms, your school or district may not call what they do "tracking." The term is taboo. But many schools and districts still engage in tracking-they just use a different name. Students are sorted into gifted and talented programs, selected to join honors classes or guided onto AP tracks-extended opportunities that their classmates may never see.

As a social studies teacher at Walla Walla High School in Washington state, I was part of an interdisciplinary professional learning community (PLC) focused on increasing our students' reading and writing scores. We looked at data to inform our methods and, in the process, discovered that our school's "tiered pathways"-tracking by another name-weren't working.

Students who struggled academically or behaviorally in middle school had been funneled into our "foundations" classes. Yet, the freshman failure rates showed that these classes didn't help them catch up. And they often separated Latinx English language learners and special education students from their peers, placing them on different paths.

As educators committed to social justice, we didn't want this to be a story of a bad system. We wanted this to be a story of success. We were enthusiastic about implementing better practices.

So we did. And I hope our methods-and the results-can serve as inspiration for educators who see tracking in any form in their schools and want to end it to ensure more equitable education for all students.

What Is Tracking?

Tracking refers to the practice of ability grouping. Schools sort students into different classes or sets of classes, often with differentiated, usually sequential, curriculum. Tracked students, for example, may follow a path from honors algebra to pre-calculus to AP calculus, or they may take what we might call foundational or mainstream courses instead. Decisions about which students end up on which track may be based on progress reports, tests or even anecdotal evidence.

These practices sometimes begin as early as kindergarten, where pre-first-day screenings sort students into different classes. By the time they're juniors or seniors in high school, students' access to college-preparation courses may be determined by whether they have taken honors classes and maintained a certain grade average.

In theory, tracking allows educators to challenge high-achieving students and devote more attention and resources to students who need help. Proponents argue that students have better access to learning when they are tracked into classes best suited to their abilities.

In practice, students in lower-track courses often have the fewest resources, the least-experienced teachers and the knowledge of their teachers' lowered expectations. A student like Jaimita Haskell isn't alone in feeling their fate sealed by tracking.

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Getting on the Right Track: How One School Stopped Tracking Students

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It only takes eight minutes to understand how a system that groups students by their predetermined "ability" can limit their potential. In 2002, WNYC's Radio Rookies project featured New York City student Jaimita Haskell's story " Tracking." In it, Haskell described how it made her feel to be placed in mainstream classes while her peers were fast-tracked into advanced courses.

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Personal Experience with Tracking (from a teacher's POV)

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Personal Experience with Tracking (from a teacher's POV)

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This article explains Jeannie Oaks (former teacher and now author) position on tracking and the effects she saw first hand at her own school.

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John O’Neil has been a contributor to Educational Leadership.Learn More

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On Tracking and Individual Differences: A Conversation with Jeannie Oakes - ASCD

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A former teacher and researcher in John Goodlad’s landmark Study of Schooling, Jeannie Oakes burst onto the education scene with the 1985 publication of Keeping Track, her research-based account of the devastating effects of tracking in public schools. Oakes has since become the country’s best-known

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How Tracking can Alter Student's College Admissions 

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How Tracking can Alter Student's College Admissions 

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This article explains how tracking follows students even outside the k-12 setting as colleges sometimes base their choices on private information regarding a students status. This has detrimental effects on underprivileged students.

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Washington Post illustration/iStock/University of Wisconsin-Stout Handout Photo (Washington Post illustration/iStock/University of Wisconsin-Stout Handout Photo)

To learn more about prospective students, admissions officers at the University of Wisconsin-Stout turned to a little-known but increasingly common practice: They installed tracking software on their school website.

When one student visited the site last year, the software automatically recognized who she was based on a piece of code, called a cookie, which it had placed on her computer during a prior visit. The software sent an alert to the school's assistant director of admissions containing the student's name, contact information and details about her life and activities on the site, according to internal university records reviewed by The Washington Post. The email said she was a graduating high school senior in Little Chute, Wis., of Mexican descent who had applied to UW-Stout.

The admissions officer also received a link to a private profile of the student, listing all 27 pages she had viewed on the school's website and how long she spent on each one. A map on this page showed her geographical location, and an "affinity index" estimated her level of interest in attending the school. Her score of 91 out of 100 predicted she was highly likely to accept an admission offer from UW-Stout, the records showed.

See the email alert triggered by University of Wisconson at Stout's tracking software

Colleges are collecting more data about prospective students than ever before - part of an effort, administrators say, to make better predictions about which students are the most likely to apply, accept an offer and enroll. Records reviewed by The Post show that at least 44 public and private universities in the United States work with outside consulting companies to collect and analyze data on prospective students, by tracking their Web activity or formulating predictive scores to measure each student's likelihood of enrolling.

The practices may raise a hidden barrier to a college education for underprivileged students. While colleges have used data for many years to decide which regions and high schools to target their recruiting, the latest tools let administrators build rich profiles on individual students and quickly determine whether they have enough family income to help the school meet revenue goals.

The Post identified colleges with data operations by reviewing the customer lists of two top admissions consulting firms: Capture Higher Ed and Ruffalo Noel Levitz. The Post interviewed admissions staffers at 23 colleges, examined contracts and emails obtained from 26 public universities through open-records laws, and used a Web privacy tool to confirm the presence of Capture Higher Ed's tracking software on the websites of 33 universities.

Records and interviews show that colleges are building vast repositories of data on prospective students - scanning test scores, Zip codes, high school transcripts, academic interests, Web browsing histories, ethnic backgrounds and household incomes for clues about which students would make the best candidates for admission. At many schools, this data is used to give students a score from 1 to 100, which determines how much attention colleges pay them in the recruiting process.

Scoring and tracking are popular at schools that are struggling to survive. Faced with shrinking sources of funding and growing competition for high school graduates, cash-strapped colleges are experimenting with new ways to identify and attract students who can afford to pay tuition, said Lloyd Thacker, a former admissions counselor and founder of the Education Conservancy, a nonprofit research group.

Post Reports: Reporter Doug MacMillan on why colleges are starting to track prospective applicants

"An admission dean is more and more a businessperson charged with bringing in revenue," Thacker said. "The more fearful they are about survival, the more willing they are to embrace new strategies."

Admissions consulting companies charge schools tens of thousands of dollars a year to collect and analyze the data of millions of students. In emails reviewed by The Post, employees of Louisville-based Capture Higher Ed urged school administrators to hand over all data they felt comfortable sharing.

"We love data, so the more the merrier," one of Capture's consultants wrote in a 2017 email to the admissions director at UW-Stout.

Capture Higher Ed spokesman Jim Davidson said the company helps schools provide relevant information to students who have chosen to receive that information. Students can opt out of Web tracking by contacting schools directly, he said.

Doug Mell, a spokesman for UW-Stout, said in an email that the school used Capture's Web tracking for a one-year trial and did not renew the contract this year. The female student who was tracked last year voluntarily gave the school her background information when she applied, he said. She enrolled in the school last year.

See the full Capture Higher Ed contract with University of Wisconsin at Stout

Consultants are expanding their influence on college campuses. Ruffalo Noel Levitz, based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has hired the top admissions officers at more than two dozen universities - including Vanderbilt, Creighton and Marquette - to do paid consulting work on the side, according to interviews and records. Some university officials received compensation from Ruffalo Noel Levitz at the same time that their schools were paying customers of the company - raising questions about potential conflicts of interest, Thacker said.

The vast majority of universities reviewed by The Post do not tell students the schools are collecting their information. In a review of the online privacy policies of all 33 schools using Web tracking software, only three disclosed the purpose of the tracking. The other 30 omitted any explanation or did not explain the full extent or purpose of their tracking.

The State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry said in its online privacy policy that it "does not use cookies." However, a representative from the school said in an email that the school does use Capture Higher Ed's tracking cookies to show relevant pop-up ads to students but deletes the cookies from its databases "within four hours."

Some privacy experts say colleges' failure to disclose the full extent of how they share data with outside consultants may violate the spirit if not the letter of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, a federal law protecting the privacy of student education records at schools that receive federal education funds. FERPA generally requires that schools ask for students' permission before sharing their personal data with any outside parties.

Rather than getting permission, some schools have classified the consulting companies as "school officials," a legal designation that exempts them from FERPA if certain conditions are met.

Zachary Greenberg, a program officer at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a student advocacy group, said colleges that do this risk undermining one of the goals of FERPA - to make the management of records more transparent. "Students deserve to know where their information is going," Greenberg said.

The Education Department can suspend all federal funding to any school it finds in violation of FERPA but has never imposed that penalty in the 45 years since the law was created. The agency has other enforcement measures and works with offenders to voluntarily come into compliance, said Angela Morabito, a spokeswoman for the Education Department. She declined to say whether colleges may be violating the law by sharing data with consulting companies.

Many schools do not give students the ability to opt out of data collection. Jacquelyn Malcolm, chief information officer at the State University of New York's Buffalo State College, said that if prospective students do not want their Web browsing tracked, they should not visit her school's website.

"You have a choice of not interacting at all," Malcolm said in an interview, adding that applicants can get information by calling the school, visiting its social media accounts or visiting other websites with information about different colleges.

In an email, a spokesman for SUNY Buffalo State later said that the school is exploring new ways to inform students about its privacy practices and that anyone can request not to be tracked by sending an email directly to Malcolm.

Filtering recruits with socioeconomic data

Data tools appeal to schools that are trying to increase revenue by recruiting students who can afford to pay tuition.

At Mississippi State University, a state school with more than 18,000 undergraduates, administrators use data to filter a large number of potential applicants down to a select pool of recruits who are a good fit for the school's academic programs and do not need much financial aid.

Each year, Mississippi State buys data on thousands of high school students from testing firms including the College Board, which owns the SAT, said John Dickerson, assistant vice president for enrollment. These students all gave permission to have their data shared by checking a box when they took the SAT. The nonprofit testing company says on its website that it licenses the names and data of each student for 47 cents apiece.

Next, Mississippi State shares its list of prospects with Ruffalo Noel Levitz, which uses a formula to assign each one a score. According to Dickerson, the formula for out-of-state students gives the most weight (30 percent) to a student's desired major; someone choosing agriculture or veterinary sciences, areas where the school is strong, will score higher than a student who wants to major in music. The formula also weighs their distance from campus (7.9 percent), income level (7.2 percent) and consumer purchasing behavior (6.8 percent), among other factors.

See the full Ruffalo Noel Levitz contract with Mississippi State University

The formula is an example of predictive analytics, a field of computer science that attempts to predict the likelihood of future events by looking for patterns in data. Similar to software that tries to predict what movies or music someone will like, these formulas attempt to guess which students are a good match for a college based on how many attributes they have in common with students who previously enrolled in the school.

A predictive formula may also be adjusted to favor the types of people a college wants more of, such as ethnic minorities or students of financial means.

Mississippi State uses socioeconomic data in its admissions algorithm to recruit more high-income students from outside the state, Dickerson said. Like many public universities, Mississippi State has ramped up out-of-state recruiting because those students pay higher tuition. The university drew 42 percent of its freshmen from out of state in 2018, up from 26 percent a decade earlier, federal data shows.

"From a practical standpoint," Dickerson said, "you would want to know if folks have an ability to pay."

The vast majority of Mississippi State students still receive some form of financial aid, and the school says it does not use financial information to determine who gets an offer of admission. However, focusing recruiting resources on higher-income students means lower-income students may receive less encouragement to apply for college.

Shaquilla Wordlaw, a junior at Mississippi State, said she thinks it is a good idea for college recruiters to use more data to target messages to the right students. But Wordlaw, who is from Starkville, where Mississippi State is based, says the school should not discriminate against students based on their income.

"They're choosing those who are a part of the upper class rather than middle or lower, because they want money," Wordlaw said. "They're not focused on the education they are providing."

Consulting companies may estimate a student's financial position by checking their Zip codes against U.S. Census data for estimated household incomes in that area. Ruffalo Noel Levitz and Capture Higher Ed also buy information from third-party data brokers, which gather consumer data from public and private databases on property holders, magazine subscribers and supermarket loyalty-card members.

Data brokers are selling your secrets. How states are trying to stop them.

Some schools say data analysis can help them find students who might not have applied in the first place. George Mason University, in Northern Virginia, uses data analysis tools to look for nontraditional prospects who might have working-class parents or be the first in their family to go to college, said David Burge, the school's vice president for enrollment management.

Consulting companies woo college officials

As they pursue student data, colleges have embraced an industry of consultants.

Hundreds of school administrators filled the ballroom of a Nashville convention center in late July for a keynote speech by Sumit Nijhawan, a former tech executive who became CEO of Ruffalo Noel Levitz last year. He paced before a large screen and discussed how data is helping colleges tailor their pitch to individual students, similar to how tech companies such as Spotify and Netflix surface music and videos based on the user, he said. "Usually the solution to problems is lurking somewhere around in data," Nijhawan told the crowd. "And there's a lot of data in higher ed - no doubt about that."

The three-day conference, replete with lunch buffets, PowerPoint presentations and free coffee mugs with company logos, was an example of how consulting companies are trying to win over school officials as they negotiate for larger contracts and more access to student data.

Hackers breach admissions files at three private colleges

At least 30 admissions officers have taken part in Ruffalo Noel Levitz's associate consulting program over the past decade, according to interviews and records posted on the company's website. Emails reviewed by The Post show the program is helping Ruffalo Noel Levitz build closer ties to campus decision-makers.

Cecilia Castellano, vice provost of strategic enrollment planning at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, became an associate consultant for Ruffalo Noel Levitz around the same time her school signed a three-year, $48,000 contract, which was obtained by The Post through a public-records request. Castellano, who was listed as the "primary contact" on that business deal in October 2016, received emails from Ruffalo Noel Levitz a few days later, asking her to sign up for a "new associate training workshop" later in the year.

In an email to Castellano the same year, Ruffalo Noel Levitz asked her to help pitch a $13,590-per-person certification program to potential customers. "Please encourage the teams on your client campuses to consider the program," the email said.

Dave Kielmeyer, a university spokesman, said Castellano attended the consultant training in 2016 and has since done two paid consulting projects for the company. She got approval from the school, which did not see the work as a conflict, Kielmeyer said. Castellano "has a role in hiring vendors," he said, but the school's provost or chief financial officer must approve consulting contracts.

Admissions officers at Vanderbilt, Creighton and Marquette universities say that they have disclosed their consulting roles with their colleges and are careful not to work with competing schools. Nijhawan, the Ruffalo Noel Levitz CEO, said in an interview that the program is aimed at helping school administrators "share knowledge across the industry."

Matching 'cookies' to student identities

Some of the same technologies that big companies use to track users and show ads to consumers are gaining traction in college admissions. One example is Capture Higher Ed's behavioral tracking service, which relies on cookies to record every click students make when they visit a university website.

Each visitor to the university site gets a cookie, which sends Capture information including that person's Internet protocol address, the type of computer and browser they are using, what time of day they visited the site and which pages within the site they clicked on, according to Patrick Jackson, chief technology officer for digital privacy firm Disconnect, who reviewed college websites on behalf of The Post.

Every time that person returns to the site, Capture learns more information about them, such as their interest in athletics or the amount of time they spend on financial aid pages, according to promotional videos on the company's website.

Initially, the cookies identify each visitor by the IP address, a unique code associated with a computer's Internet connection, but Capture also offers software tools to match the cookie data with people's real identities, according to the company's promotional videos. Colleges do this by sending marketing emails to thousands of prospective students, inviting them to click on a hyperlink inside the message for more information about a particular topic, according to the videos.

When a student clicks on the link, Capture learns which email address is associated with which IP address, connecting the student's real identity to the college's snapshot of the student's Web browsing history, Capture executives said in one of the videos.

"We are embedding links in every email," Billy Pierce, then director of undergraduate admission at the University of Toledo, a Capture customer, said onstage at a college admissions conference in 2016. "You want more of the identified visitors coming to your website because those are the kids that you have their name, their address, their email, sometimes their phone number - any information you have in your system now gets tied to their behavior," Pierce said at the conference, a video of which was posted to YouTube.

Meghan Cunningham, a spokeswoman for the University of Toledo, said the school uses Capture's software code on its website and in some - not all - of its marketing emails in an effort to give students information relevant to them. In an email, Pierce added that students choose to give their names and contact information to the school.

Admissions officers say behavioral tracking helps them serve students in the application process. When a college sees that a qualified student is serious about applying based on the student's Web behavior, it can dedicate more staffers to follow up.

"An admissions counselor may only have an hour in a given day to make contact with prospective students," Chrissy Holliday, vice president of enrollment at Colorado State University at Pueblo - a Capture Higher Ed client - said in an email. "The web data allows the counselor to know which students are currently most engaged and might benefit most from that contact."

But Web tracking may unfairly provide an advantage to students with better access to technology, said Bradley Shear, a Maryland lawyer who has pushed for better regulation of students' online privacy. A low-income student may be a strong academic candidate but receive less attention from recruiters because the student does not own a smartphone or have high-speed Internet access at home, he said.

"I don't think the algorithm should run the admissions department," Shear said.

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Student tracking, secret scores: How college admissions offices rank prospects before they apply

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Records reviewed by The Washington Post show that at least 44 public and private universities in the United States work with outside consulting companies to collect and analyze data on prospective students, either by tracking their Web activity or formulating predictive scores to measure each student's likelihood of enrolling.