Mapping Old Post-baccalaureate Award Levels with New Award Levels

• As of the Fall 2010-11 Data Collection, all IPEDS institutions are required to use the new post-baccalaureate award levels.
• Changes to the award levels affect only post-baccalaureate award levels.
• The changes can be briefly be summarized as the elimination of the first-professional degree (Award level 10) and first-professional certificate (Award level 11), and the expansion of the doctor’s degree (Award level 9) into three categories: Doctor’s degree-research/scholarship (Award level 17), Doctor’s degree- professional practice (Award level 18) and, Doctor’s degree- Other (Award level 19).
• Ultimately, IPEDS institutions have the discretion to decide how to recode their post-baccalaureate awards; this tip sheet simply provides suggestions on how to do this recoding.

Old Award Level Code	Old Award Level Description	New Award Level Code	New Award Level Description
7	Master’s degree	7	Master’s degree
8	Post-master’s certificate	8	Post-master’s certificate
9	Doctor’s degree	17	Doctor’s degree-research/scholarship
		18	Doctor’s degree-professional practice
		19	Doctor’s degree-Other
10	First- professional degree (D.C, D.C.M, D.D.S,D.M.D., M.D., O.D., D.O., Pharm.D., D.P.M.,D.P., Pod.D., D.V.M., L.L.B, J.D.)	17	Doctor’s degree-research/scholarship
		18	Doctor’s degree-professional practice*
		19	Doctor’s degree-Other
10	First-professional degree (M.Div, M.H.L, B.D., Ordination)	7	Master’s degree
11	First-professional certificate	8	Post-master’s certificate

*While most doctoral level first-professional degrees will typically be re-coded as 18 Doctor’s degree-professional practice, schools may elect to recode them in another doctor’s degree category.