| PublicationDate: 5/2/97 Summary: 1997-98 Verification Selection & Apparent Data Author: OPE - Office of the Assistant Secretary for OPE TO: Financial Aid Community FROM: Jeanne B. Saunders Director, Application & Pell Processing Systems Division SUBJECT: 1997-98 Verification Selection & Apparent Data Entry Errors Verification Selection: In response to concerns from the financial aid community, ED's contractor performed an analysis of our 1997-98 verification selection criteria. Last week, ED was notified that an error was found. We immediately corrected an error in the tables used by the Central Processing System (CPS) to select individuals for verification from the general category of "error-prone" applications. This error did not increase the percentage of students selected for verification and all applications selected were in the "error-prone" category. This problem resulted in our selecting an imbalance of Pell eligible and Pell-ineligible applications. If applicants submit corrections to their 1997-98 FAFSA data, some may be selected for verification on these later transactions. However, the overall national average of applicants chosen for verification will remain at the targeted rate of 30%. Data Entry The Department is aware of some financial aid administrators' belief that data entry errors for the 1997-98 processing cycle are higher this year than in previous years. At present, the number of corrections processed does not appear to be inconsistent with numbers from earlier years at comparable periods. Although we have moved to the use of Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR), which replaces some of the manual key entry of data, the volume of errors found under both processes is similar. However, under the ICR process, ones and "L's," and zero's and "O's" are sometimes read interchangeably. In addition, if a student has written his last name such as "Mullins," even though the student may have written the second letter like a "v," an operator would probably interpret the last name correctly. ICR, however, captures what it reads and we may see "Mvllins," rather than "Mullins." We are working with our contractors to tighten our specifications and resolve the more common errors found in order to improve our error rates. To ensure accurate data, we place stringent requirements on our contractors. Specifically, we require the MDEs to key or capture the data from each application or correction twice. The data is compared and any fields which do not match are resolved by a third manual review of the data. Prior to transmission of the data to the CPS, an additional manual quality control step is performed based on industry standards. A set number of forms is randomly selected from each batch and the data for each field of those selected forms are reviewed for accuracy. If one error is found on any field for any of those randomly-selected forms, the entire batch fails and the entire batch must be reworked. In addition, 1997-98 is the second year that ED has implemented an independent review of the data entry process for applications and SAR corrections. The final analysis of this review will be completed in the near future. If FAAs or their students find an instance where an apparent data entry error has been made, you or the student should contact the Federal Student Aid Information Center on (800) 433-3243. The staff will review the image of the application or the SAR and if an error is found, will report that error to the Department and we will report the error to the proper MDE for immediate corrective action. |