Kellee Gunderson

Kellie,

The extent to which skip tracing is necessary depends on the demographic makeup of schools and the way information is collected. Institutions that have high drop rates and impersonal entrance counseling are likely to run into difficulties locating students when delinquency occurs.

In order to minimize the effort and expense of skip tracing, we can verify information early and often (require more references than the MPN; verify references by calling them or at minimum by visually inspecting the information for completeness and legibility; gather updated information from tutoring, career services/placement, faculty, bookstore, etc.; conduct in-person exist counseling that engages and interests students), be alert to absenteeism and poor academic performance, and understand the challenges faced by the local community from which our student pool is taken (income levels, housing and transportation issues, etc.).

There are so many factors that contribute to a student falling off our radar, and while we cannot prevent every instance we can be proactive toward the challenges that are most relevant to our particular populations.

Kellee Gunderson