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ASAP consistently increased students’ likelihood of enrolling at CUNY colleges, especiallyduring the first two years of the program. During the main sessions of the second throughsixth semesters, ASAP’s effects on enrollment rates were 9.6, 7.7, 9.5, 6.6, and 4.6 percentagepoints, respectively. 5ASAP’s effects on intersession enrollment are even more dramatic, peaking at 25.2 percentagepoints during the second semester. 6 The large effects on intersession enrollment duringthe first two years may reflect several factors: (1) control group students enrolled at low rates,leaving a large margin for improvement; (2) ASAP requires full-time enrollment (attempting 12credits or more) and the intersession credits count toward full-time enrollment; and (3) ASAPadvisers guided students to enroll during intersessions. The magnitude of the effects in the thirdyear (during both main sessions and intersessions) is lower than in previous years. This decreasepartially reflects the fact that by that time, many more ASAP students had earned an associate’sdegree compared with their control group counterparts (described later in detail).Compared with the usual college services, ASAP clearly improves students’ likelihoodof continuing to enroll in college. The program group’s enrollment rates during the first fewmain sessions reflect a high rate of retention. Between the first and second semesters, theprogram group’s enrollment rate dropped only 6.2 percentage points. Between the second andthird semesters, the drop in the enrollment rate was 14.5 percentage points, a much more typicaldecrease. While ASAP had significant positive effects on persistence, developing additionalstrategies to retain students at the end of their first year could be one place to focus efforts toimprove enrollment rates.Recall that to enter the MDRC evaluation, students had to be willing to enroll full time. 7Part-time attendance is often described as a risk factor for community college students and, asnoted in Chapter 1, is negatively associated with academic success. Appendix Table C.1 showsfull-time enrollment at any CUNY college during the six semesters of follow-up. From the veryfirst study semester, students offered the opportunity to participate in ASAP were more likely toenroll full time, compared with their control group counterparts (on average 12 percentagepoints more likely across the six semesters of follow-up).5 For the final estimate of 4.6 percentage points, p > 0.10.6 For the final two intersessions, the effect estimates p > 0.10.7 Throughout this chapter, full-time enrollment is defined as attempting 12 credits or more in a semester.As explained in Box 4.1, a semester includes both the main session and intersession. Full-time enrollmentstatus is based on total credits attempted in both the main session and intersession. For the purposes of ASAP,Kingsborough and LaGuardia Community Colleges define full time in the way it is presented in this chapter;Borough of Manhattan Community College, however, does not include the summer or winter intersessionswhen determining full-time status.54

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