Research for Successful Recruits

CNA has maintained personnel databases for the Marine Corps for more than 30 years, with individual accession records going back to FY79. Just as long as we have been keeping the official records, we have been analyzing recruit characteristics and attrition through studies and scientific analyst memoranda. Over the years, we have identified characteristics that are particularly important to monitor because they are closely associated with successful adaptation to life in the Marine Corps.

This annotated briefing analyzes the last 30 years, trying to answer the following questions:
• Have recruit characteristics changed over time?
• Have the relationships between recruit characteristics and subsequent attrition remained stable or have the patterns changed?
• What characteristics are most important for predicting success in the Corps?

While most of the focus is on accession characteristics and bootcamp attrition, we also look at first-term attrition and long-term retention.