CARY, NC, Dec. 18, 2008 -- Noel-Levitz helps colleges and universities determine with high accuracy which students are most likely to enroll and succeed. The company uses predictive analytics from SAS, the leader in business analytics, to forecast the behavior of prospective students, determine which are at risk and identify factors influencing student retention. This allows campuses to shape their enrollments with precision, while using scarce resources more strategically.

Noel-Levitz has leapfrogged its competition by predicting which 20,000 to 30,000 of the 2.5 million eligible high school seniors are most likely to enroll in any particular school each year and by quickly getting lists to its customers. The company’s competitors, who charge for lists by volume, cannot narrow the target so successfully. Noel-Levitz customers are able to use their budget dollars to attract and retain more of the students they really want, saving time and money along the way.

SAS Enterprise Miner data mining software is critical to Noel-Levitz’s ability to better serve its customers in admissions, financial aid, and other departments concerned with student retention and success. Newest products include SMART Approach, a system for qualifying student names, and retentionRT, which predicts student success and student loan repayment. This expansion accounted for 14 percent of top-line revenue in the past two years.

“SAS Enterprise Miner is easy to use and adapt as we develop new products,” said Tim Thein, Senior Vice President and Principal at Noel-Levitz. “SAS fueled our 2006 expansion with new product development taking a fraction of the time I expected. In just two years, those new products have brought in hundreds of customers. At the same time, SAS Enterprise Miner brought efficiencies to our staff: They’re accomplishing more in less time and saving our company hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in personnel costs. SAS is the business analytics leader that adds science to the art of our business.”

SAS Enterprise Miner streamlines the entire data mining process, from data access to model deployment, by supporting necessary tasks within a single, integrated solution, all while providing the flexibility for efficient workgroup collaborations.

About Noel-Levitz

Noel-Levitz is a nationally recognized higher education consulting firm that specializes in strategic planning for enrollment and student success. Each year, campus executives from throughout the U.S. meet regularly with Noel-Levitz to accomplish their goals for student retention, student recruitment, marketing, and strategic enrollment management. The firm offers consulting, custom research, benchmark data, innovative tools and technologies, side-by-side plan development and execution, and resources for professional development. Noel-Levitz has offices in Colorado and Iowa. For more information, visit www.noellevitz.com.

About SAS

SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. With innovative business applications supported by an enterprise intelligence platform, SAS helps customers at 45,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better decisions faster. Since 1976 SAS has been giving customers around the world The Power to Know® .