Each student in the PTC has a single record for their time at CUNY. This record contains up to 10 years worth of data. The tracking window starts with the earliest record in the IRDB (HISTORY_FACTS) starting in fall 1999.

We choose the earliest record based on the first term in which the student was coded as a first-time freshman (NEW_STUDENT_CODE=1). If a student enrolls as a freshman in fall 2003 and has a later freshman record (for a variety of reasons) in 2011, they will be put into the fall 2003 entering cohort.

In the cases where a student has more than one FTF record in the earliest term identified, the record associated with the college where they took the most credits that semester is chosen. Thus, if a student entered CUNY in fall 2000 and took 3 credits at Hunter and 9 credits at Baruch, the Baruch record is chosen.