Faced with shrinking state funds and pressure to raise graduation rates, California State University, Northridge piloted an early alert system in courses with high failure rates. One section of introductory microeconomics was selected for participation in the campus pilot. The early alert system is intended to flag at-risk students and provide them with support services prior to failure. Its success is reliant on good information flows between faculty, academic advisors, and students; and effective intervention strategies. An examination of the pilot process shows poor information flows and low-key interventions. Faculty collect and prepare data to generate an alert but receive no feedback about resulting interventions for at-risk students. Nearly half of students who receive an early alert could not be reached by an academic advisor. When contacted, advisors typically direct at-risk students to speak with their instructor or seek tutoring. Students rarely meet academic advisors face-to-face and there is no tracking to ensure students act on their recommendations. Descriptive statistics suggest the pilot correctly identified students at risk of failing microeconomics principles. A student satisfaction survey indicates the pilot made students more aware of campus resources; and encouraged them to study and attend class more often. However, regression analysis suggests that participation in the early alert pilot does not improve student performance in microeconomics principles.