Strategic StudentCohort Graduation Rate What-If
What does it take to move our grad rate? Enter your cohort the official way and find out. You'll see your four-year rate, exactly how many students one point represents, and what happens when a handful more of them cross the stage. No PII. No login. Everything runs in your browser.
Build the cohort
No PIIStudents who entered 9th grade for the first time, four years ago.
Students who joined the cohort at any point during the four years.
Only verified transfers to another diploma-granting program may be removed, not dropouts. That is the federal rule.
Students who earned a regular diploma within four years.
Each figure is one student.
Rates are just students, counted one by one.
79.0%
For context only: the most recent national four-year ACGR is about 87%. A school's rate depends on who it serves and how it counts, so we don't color-code yours. The number that matters is the one below.
The what-if
What if 5 more students graduated?
That's the whole secret. Points are just students, counted one by one. Name the 5, build the plan, and the rate follows. Your counselors already know who they are.
Keep in mind
- Event rates and cohort rates are different animals. An event rate counts one year's dropouts and always looks rosier. When someone quotes a graduation rate, ask which one.
- Transfers out require documentation. Undocumented leavers stay in the denominator as non-graduates, which is why data hygiene IS grad-rate strategy.
- The best predictor of this number four years early is freshman on-track status. Check any 9th grader in seconds with the Freshman On-Track Predictor.
How this works
This tool computes the Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate (ACGR), the official federal measure. In words: take everyone who entered 9th grade for the first time four years ago, add students who transferred in, and subtract students who verifiably left for another diploma-granting program. That is the adjusted cohort. Divide the number who earned a regular diploma within four years by that cohort, and you have your rate.
Who may be removed from a cohort is strict on purpose. A student comes out of the denominator only with documentation that they enrolled in another school or program that grants a regular diploma, emigrated, or died. Dropouts, students who leave for GED programs, and students who vanish without paperwork all stay in the cohort and count as non-graduates. That is why chasing down enrollment records is not clerical work. It is graduation-rate work.
One more trap: the event rate. An event dropout rate counts the share of enrolled students who drop out in a single year, so it is always a much smaller, friendlier-looking number than the share of a cohort that never finishes. The two get confused constantly, sometimes by accident. When a rate gets quoted, ask which kind it is.
Sources: NCES, Public High School Graduation Rates and National Academies (2011), High School Dropout, Graduation, and Completion Rates.
A graduation rate is a mirror, not a motor. It moves when specific students get specific support in time.