February 3, 2026
6 Pain Points Institutions Face in ACTS Reporting and How to Navigate Them with Confidence
How institutions are approaching ACTS, and how Dynamic Campus can help bring clarity and control.
by Laurie Capozza, Dynamic Campus Vice President, Shared & Professional Services
As colleges and universities begin working through the new Admissions, Completions, and Transfer Student (ACTS) reporting requirements, a familiar pattern is emerging: even highly mature Institutional Research (IR) teams encountering the same operational, definitional, and technical barriers.
ACTS isn’t simply “another IPEDS survey.” It’s a multi‑domain, multi‑year, applicant‑level data reconstruction effort, made harder by evolving templates and limited institutional history.
Early Challenges to ACTS Success
Across Association for Institutional Research (AIR) discussions, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) technical instructions, and early institutional attempts, six consistent challenges stand out.
Below is a synthesis of what institutions are running into, why it’s happening, and the solution patterns beginning to emerge.
A) Cohort Confusion: “What years are included, and who belongs where?”
One of the most common hurdles is decoding which students fall into each ACTS domain. NCES specifies different windows and rules for Admissions, Enrollment, Academics, Aid, and Completers. Without a clear, documented crosswalk, teams often disagree or misinterpret rules.
Solution pattern: Build a detailed cohort crosswalk implementing the NCES definitions clearly, including deferrals, “program reporters,” and domain‑specific year spans.
B) Missing Data: GPA, test scores, income, and historical applicant elements
Many institutions simply don’t retain certain applicant‑level elements for non‑admits or earlier years. NCES and AIR recommend transparent handling of unknown data, with consistent codes (e.g., “‑1 Unknown”) and clear explanations when sections cannot be reconstructed.
C) Aggregator Tool Validation Errors
Even when the underlying data logic is correct, the file may fail validation due to coding, formatting, or structural issues. Institutions are finding that pre‑validation logic mirroring the Aggregator Tool significantly reduces upload failures.
D) Template Updates Breaking Existing Work
The shift from template v1.0 to v1.1 changed income coding, added GPA clarifications, and expanded graduate fields, causing institutions to revisit ETL logic they thought was complete.
E) Timeline Pressure
With ACTS open Dec 18, 2025 and closing March 18, 2026, teams are reconstructing multi‑year datasets in a very compressed window. AIR emphasizes submitting a technically valid file first, then improving quality in iterations.
F) Open Definition Questions
When NCES allows institutional discretion, such as handling multiple test scores, sex data, or GPA recalculation, institutions must establish clear rules and apply them consistently across years, with transparency in explanation fields.
How Dynamic Campus Helps Institutions Succeed With ACTS
ACTS is new and complex, but it is also type of multi-system, multi-year, high-stakes work Dynamic Campus is designed to support. Institutions that partner with Dynamic Campus don’t face ACTS alone; they gain an integrated team of IR analysts, data engineers, SIS specialists, and compliance experts that brings structure, clarity, and confidence to the process.
Here’s how Dynamic Campus can help at every stage:
1. Translate NCES Rules Into Clear, Usable Institutional Logic
Dynamic Campus works alongside IR, Registrar, and IT teams to establish:
This upfront clarity reduces internal friction and prevents rework later.
2. Reconstruct Historical Data with Discipline and Transparency
Dynamic Campus brings extensive experience rebuilding applicant‑level datasets across Banner, Colleague, PowerCampus, Jenzabar, Slate, Salesforce, and custom systems.
We can:
The result is a defensible, consistent dataset, even when institutional history is incomplete.
3. Build an ACTS‑Ready Data Engineering Pipeline
Rather than relying on manual exports, Dynamic Campus designs a reusable pipeline that includes:
This dramatically reduces last‑minute validation failures and makes ACTS repeatable, not heroic.
4. Adapt Fast As Templates Evolve
Because ACTS templates will continue to evolve, Dynamic Campus builds:
Institutions retain momentum even as templates evolve.
5. Project Management Under Tight Timelines
With ACTS’ aggressive deadlines, Dynamic Campus can serve as:
This structure reduces institutional stress and supports timely, accurate reporting.
6. Supporting Governance in the “Gray Areas”
When NCES allows flexibility (e.g. multiple test scores, GPA recalculation), Dynamic Campus helps institutions establish:
The outcome is a compliant submission leaders can stand behind with confidence.
In Short: ACTS Is Complex. Dynamic Campus Brings Clarity.
Where institutions encounter uncertainty: cohort interpretation, missing data, validation issues, evolving templates, and compressed timelines, Dynamic Campus provides:
By partnering with Dynamic Campus, institutions move from reacting under pressure to operating with a sustainable ACTS process they trust. For a broader view of how ACTS can strengthen data governance and decision-making, see ACTS Is More Than Compliance: A Leadership Opportunity.“
