Scaling an effective remote college advising program: Matriculate expansion for Classes of 2024-2026

Last registered on September 21, 2026
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Scaling an effective remote college advising program: Matriculate expansion for Classes of 2024-2026
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0019555
Initial registration date
September 03, 2026

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
September 21, 2026, 6:41 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Primary Investigator

Name
Kelli Bird
Affiliation
University of Virginia
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Benjamin Castleman
PI Affiliation
University of Virginia
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2023-03-07
End date
2027-12-31
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
In-person college advising programs generate large improvements in college persistence and success for low-income students but face numerous barriers to scale. Remote advising models offer a promising strategy to address informational and assistance barriers facing the substantial majority of low-income students who do not have access to community-based advising, yet the existing evidence base on the efficacy of remote advising is fairly limited. One notable exception is Matriculate, as part of the CollegePoint initiative, generated positive and statistically significant impacts on enrollment at high graduation rate colleges (4.5 percentage points) as part of a multi-cohort RCT (high school classes of 2018, 2019, and 2020). In this randomized control trial, we will investigate the impact of Matriculate advising as the organization scales its program. Specifically, they will roughly triple the number of students they serve for the high school classes of 2024, 2025, and 2026, relative to those served in the first RCT.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Bird, Kelli and Benjamin Castleman. 2026. "Scaling an effective remote college advising program: Matriculate expansion for Classes of 2024-2026." AEA RCT Registry. September 21. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.19555-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
CollegePoint is a national remote college advising program that matches high-achieving, low- and moderate-income high school juniors and seniors with college advisors who provide one-on-one support with college exploration and preparation, college, financial aid, and scholarship applications, and college choice. College advisors begin working with students between the spring of their junior year of high school and the fall of their senior year of high school, and conclude advising during the summer after students graduate from high school.As part of the CollegePoint initiative, Matriculate provided advising services to high school seniors from the graduating high school cohorts of 2024, 2025, and 2026, through a near-pear advising model.
Intervention Start Date
2023-03-07
Intervention End Date
2026-06-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The primary outcome of interest is whether students attend a high graduation rate (HGR) college or university. HGR schools are those with a graduation rate of 70 percent or higher. The CollegePoint Initiative explicitly encourages enrollment at these schools. We will also use the Barron's selectivity index to construct alternative measures of school quality.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
The secondary outcomes of interest are persistence and continuous enrollment at HGR and Barron's institutions.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
CollegePoint recruited students through the College Board and other partners. Among students who indicated interest in participating and who met 1) the academic (3.5 GPA or higher AND 90th percentile or higher of the SAT distribution OR who qualified for "test optional" eligibility based on taking multiple advanced placement courses in high school and 2) the income eligibility criteria (self-reported family income of $80,000 or lower for 2024 cohort; family income of $90,000 or lower for 2025 and 2026 cohorts), students from the high school classes of 2024, 2025, and 2026 were randomly assigned to receive Matriculate advising or to a control group that did not receive support from the program.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
CollegePoint contracted with Evaluation and Assessment Solutions for Education (EASE) to conduct the randomization. EASE used Stata to conduct randomization.
Randomization Unit
Among students who indicated interest in CollegePoint and who met the eligibility criteria, randomization took place at the student level. Randomization blocks are sign-up wave by eligibility criteria (traditional or test optional). For some waves, randomization was also blocked on income level category (low or middle). As students were recruited and expressed interest between April and October of each calendar year, eligible students were randomly assigned to Matriculate or to the control group. The randomization occurred with a frequency that varied between daily and weekly depending on the number of students who expressed interest since the last randomization occurred.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
9700 students
Sample size: planned number of observations
9700 students
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
7700 treated, 2000 control
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
2.98 percentage points, which equates to 4.97% of the control mean. These calculations assume that student baseline characteristics (including randomization blocks) account for 25% of the variation in the outcome and a control mean outcome of 60%.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Virginia IRB-SBS
IRB Approval Date
2024-04-22
IRB Approval Number
6670
Analysis Plan