Fifty years ago, ETS initiated the era of large-scale, standardized admissions testing with automated scoring machines capable of processing 4,000 tests per day. Today the company scores over 64,000 tests per day, and administers more than eleven million tests each year. Along with the growth in testing volume has come increased demand for the company's specialized mailing lists used to increase enrollment, improve student diversity, attract quality students, and to target students by major and geographical region. The existing system for preparing these lists depended on the US mail for customer interaction, and required far too much manual intervention in the automated process. The Graduate and Professional Search Service consists of an Internet store front and student search data mart.
Customers can log onto the Internet and dynamically enter criteria for their desired list.
The system then processes the criteria and estimates the size of the generated list. If the list size and description matches the needs of the customer, the list is generated and the customer charged appropriately. Customers can then select the desired transmission format and download the list and associated support data immediately. The Graduate and Professional Search Service system has removed the need for manual intervention and made order processing easier and faster. In addition, the interactive capabilities of the Internet and electronic delivery of the final product have reduced the time required for order input and fulfillment from as much as a week or more to just minutes.