Extract Enrollment Year
I need to get the last 2 digits of the 'Student ID' (e.g., 'S1234521' should yield '21') to identify the enrollment year for reporting, analysis, and student cohort management. Manually extracting these digits for hundreds or thousands of students is time-consuming and prone to errors.
=RIGHT(A2,2) How it works: The `RIGHT` function in Excel is designed to extract a specified number of characters from the end (right side) of a text string. In this scenario, `A2` is the text string containing the 'Student ID', and `2` is the `num_chars` argument, telling Excel to pull out the last two characters. This effectively isolates the enrollment year from the Student ID, making it readily available for further use.
Data Setup
| Student ID | Student Name | Enrollment Year |
|---|---|---|
| S1234521 | Alice Smith | |
| S9876522 | Bob Johnson | |
| S1122323 | Charlie Brown | |
| S5544324 | Diana Prince | |
| S0099825 | Eve Adams |
Step-by-Step Guide
Select the cell where you want the extracted enrollment year to appear (e.g., cell C2).
Type the formula `=RIGHT(A2,2)` into the selected cell. Here, 'A2' refers to the cell containing the first Student ID, and '2' indicates that you want to extract the last two characters.
Press Enter to apply the formula. The enrollment year (e.g., '21') will appear in cell C2.
To apply the formula to the rest of your student IDs, click on cell C2 again, then drag the fill handle (the small green square at the bottom-right corner of the cell) down to the last row of your data.