US Army's Delay Entry Program: A Survival Study

This thesis studies the phenomena of Delayed Entry Program (DEP) survival. Specifically, this study attempts to provide a method for estimating the number of DEP accessions from a pool of recruits in DEP contracts. When providing recruiter goals, the Army must consider the number of individuals it has in DEP inventory. Due to DEP losses (Attrition) the number of recruit goals must be adjusted up or down depending on the number of individuals anticipated surviving the DEP contract. To accomplish this end a logistic model is fit to provide accession estimates. The model is fit to the largest recruit category - the male, high-school graduate with an Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) score in the top 50 percentile. By exploring how those in DEP survive (access) the contract, Army analyst can estimate future expected number of accessions based on the current inventory of recruits in DEP. Recruiting, Delayed entry program, DEP