Follow the yellow brick recommended path.The Comprehensive Academic Tracking System — which tracks 54 different majors — provides students with the best possible schedules to achieve graduation in four or five years.”The University’s hope and goal is … to make sure that if we have a student who appears isn’t making adequate progress toward a degree [we will] positively and actively intervene [with advising] early in their degree … to help them get back on track or pick a new major that better suites their abilities,” said Robert Doolos, University registrar. “We want to bring an end to this situation where students can be here for five to six semesters and not be admitted into a degree program.”The first CATS pilot began in fall 2008 and only tracked freshmen in political science, finance, biochemistry and mass communication majors. The current CATS pilot tracks 47 additional majors, including kinesiology, English, architecture, management, music education, social sciences, arts and humanities and science and engineering. There are 150 degree programs left to be implemented into CATS by the fall 2010 deadline.David Kurpius, Manship School of Mass Communication associate dean, said the University’s graduation rate, which is reported every six years, is lower than its national peers, and CATS could be the answer to improvement.”CATS wasn’t developed just to raise the graduation rate,” Kurpius said. “It was developed to help students make good decisions, and part of that is it improves the graduation and retention rates, which we like.”To improve the graduation rate, Doolos said one of the main goals for CATS is to help struggling students make better decisions regarding their major. “If [students] are not making progress, [CATS] will get them in to be advised … and if they don’t make progress, they’ll be changing their majors earlier,” Doolos said. “The key is advising … and finding out what is it at LSU that [a struggling student] can succeed in and make that decision after two semesters, not six.”Doolos said many students who are unable to get into their senior college of choice decide after six semesters at the University to change their major to general studies to graduate within four or five years. “Many students will gravitate to general studies after six semesters of struggling, which puts a tremendous burden on the College of Arts and Sciences staff,” Doolos said. “The intention is not to let the student get into that situation. If a student is off track after two semesters, that student will have a serious conversation with an academic advisor.”Christina Poiter, animal sciences junior, said CATS seems like it could add more pressure and stress to students.”The idea is good, but I’d be upset if someone told me to change my major,” Poiter said. “It’s good to have a degree path, [but some] freshmen don’t even know what they want to do yet.”Stephanie Champagne, assistant registrar, said four CATS assessments track student progress during each semester, with three tracking the current semester and one tracking the upcoming semester. Champagne said students will receive an e-mail warning and a scheduling hold for the current and future semesters if an assessment finds them off track.”That hold prevents [students] from scheduling without an advisor,” Champagne said. “After each assessment, the colleges get a report that tells them which students are not meeting the critical requirements. They use that report to help determine how many students need to be advised.”Stephanie Erie, general studies counselor, said she welcomes the additional advising CATS will bring.Lisa Crow, international studies sophomore, said graduating in four years is her only option and knowing a system like CATS is tracking her degree progress makes her feel at ease.”It’s really hard when you’re one of 30,000 students,” Crow said. “I really do need someone else to tell me what track I’m on.”—-Contact Mary Walker Baus at [email protected]