The VP of admissions at SWC knows from past experience how many of the students that apply to the school will actually end up attending and generating revenue (the “conversion rate”). However, it is always a guess as to how many students will end up applying each year, so projecting revenue and expenses is difficult. The VP would like a systematic way to predict applications for next year based on the number of applications in years past. The VP would like you to present three different methods to predict applications for next year along with a way to determine which prediction method is best. Which method would you recommend? Why? The number of applications received in previous years is found in Tab 2 of the Excel file “Case 2 Data”.

Applications 1020 Year 2009 2010 1260 2011 1140 2012 1380 2013 1080 2014 960 2015 1200 2016 1080 2017 1320 2018 1200 2019 900 2020 1320