The 1978-1979 pre-award institution validation process for the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant (BEOG) program was studied, based on applicant and grant recipient files as of the end of February 1979. The objective was to assess the impact of the validation process on the proper award of BEOGs, and to determine whether the criteria for selecting students for validation could be improved. The validation population of 119,790 applicants was comprised of two groups: those selected according to pre-established criteria (87 percent) and those selected at random (13 percent). The rest of the applicant population consisted of those who met the pre-established criteria and those who did not. In almost 90 percent of the validation cases, data items were valid. The processing system edits appeared to be eliciting valid data, resulting in an accuracy rate of about 90 percent for each of the validation fields. The edits were causing applicants to make most of the necessary corrections to applications before validation. The criteria used to select applicants for validation were generally adequate in detecting misreporting. However, individual criteria varied in their effectiveness. (SW)