Add a Student by Hand

Use Add a Student to enter a paper application or one taken over the phone. TRIOPilot treats it like an online submission: it creates the student record, files every answer and saves a PDF of the application to the student's documents.

Where to Find It

On the Students page, click Add New Student at the top right, next to the page title. The page may use your program's own word for students.

Admins can always add students. Advisors and assistants can by default, and an admin can turn that off for either role with Add Students in Settings, on the Team tab (see Add a User or Advisor). Observers and guests cannot add students and do not see the button.

Filling Out the Form

The form is your program's own application, the same one applicants see online. Answer the questions from the paper form in front of you.

At the top, a Student Details panel holds three staff-only settings that are not part of the application:

• Assign to Advisor. The advisor whose caseload the student joins. If you are an advisor, it defaults to you. Choose Unassigned to decide later. If your form asks applicants to choose an advisor, Unassigned gives the student the advisor the applicant chose, when their answer is linked to one (see Let Applicants Choose an Advisor).
• Program Year. The year this application belongs to. It defaults to the current program year, and you can pick the next year or one of the three before it.
• Initial Status. Where the student starts: Pending, Active, Served or Reportable. Most new students start at Pending. See Understand Student Statuses.

Then work down the application. If your program split the form into pages, use Next and Back to move between them; the Student Details panel and Cancel stay on every page, and Add Student is on the last page. You must answer every required question before you can save, the same rule that applies online. An email address is optional here, because a paper form may not have one, unless your form makes its email question required.

If your program uses the federal low-income levels, the income question can offer three ranges instead of two. A program year can span two years' levels, because the Department publishes new levels each January. Once the program year you choose reaches the day the new levels take effect, the question asks about both limits, for example $31,725 or less, More than $31,725, $32,460 or less and More than $32,460. The answer sets the student's Low-Income by the newer levels, and the APR reports Low-Income as the profile records it.

If your program labels the income question Total Taxable Household Income, the year in the label follows the Program Year you choose. Federal rules read the family's taxable income for "the calendar year preceding the year in which the individual initially participated in the project", so the label names the year before the program year's first calendar year. Once the program year reaches its second calendar year, the label names both income years, for example Total Taxable Household Income (2024/2025) for PY 25-26. Confirm with the student which year's income applies to their first service.

Signature questions do not appear, because you cannot sign for the student. Attach the scanned paper form with the real signature to a file upload question, or add it to the student's documents afterward. A file upload question here takes the files the Documents tab takes, up to 25 MB each; a file that is larger, or of another type, is not added, and the question names it and says why as soon as you choose it.

This is also how you add a student under 13, whom the public form does not take. See If an Applicant Is Under 13.

The form checks a few answers before it saves, as the online form does, and a message tells you which one to correct:

• First Name and Last Name need at least one letter from A to Z (accented letters such as é count). For a name written only in another alphabet, enter the spelling in the letters A to Z: federal reports and the Clearinghouse file carry names in those letters only.
• A question your program maps to a number field, such as a GPA, takes a number only, so 3.5/4.0 or B+ is refused. Enter the number, for example 3.5.
• A date takes a year from 1900 to 2200. Enter all four digits of the year.
• Email, when you enter one, must be a full address, such as name@stonefield.edu.
• Date of Birth cannot be after the last day of the program year you chose, or give an age under 5 on it. The refusal names the day, so check the date and the Program Year together.
• A question mapped to a field your APR record file writes in a fixed format is refused the way the profile refuses it, naming the question. For example, a school code takes 6 digits, or B, E or G followed by 5 digits, and an unweighted GPA takes a number from 0.001 to 4.000 or one of the form's codes. See Update a Student's Record.
• A date your APR record file reports, such as a graduation date, cannot be after today.

When everything is entered, click Add Student. Cancel takes you back to the students list without saving.

Possible Duplicates

TRIOPilot never merges records on its own. If the new student matches a student you already have, by email, by name and date of birth, or by phone and date of birth, the new record is still created and flagged as a possible duplicate. The existing record is never overwritten. You then compare the two side by side and merge them if they are the same person. See Review Possible Duplicates.

What Happens After You Save

You land on the new student's profile. Their answers are filed under the program year you chose, and a PDF of the application is saved to their Documents tab under your name. From then on the record works like any other: you can log contacts and edit fields, and it counts toward your reporting. If the PDF is missing, see Upload and Download Documents.

If a file you attached does not upload, the student is still added, and the page stays open and names the file. Choose Go to Profile, then upload the file again from the Documents tab. TRIOPilot records the problem, so you do not need to report it.

If Add Student gets no clear answer, for example on a dropped connection, the page says it could not confirm that the student was added and keeps what you entered. Look for the student in your list before you try again, because the first try may have reached TRIOPilot. TRIOPilot records the problem, so you do not need to report it.

TRIOPilot sends the student no email when you add them by hand. Staff who receive new application emails get one, as they do for an online application.