Overview
Admitted Class Evaluation Service™ (ACES) is a free online service from the College Board for colleges and universities. It helps you answer important questions about the College Board assessments you use to admit, place, and advise students at your institution.
Our expert analysis of the data you supply can serve to validate your admission and placement policies—or help you refine them.
Here are examples of questions that an ACES study can help you answer:
- What combination and weighting of SAT scores, high school GPA, and other key factors will work best in our admission model to predict student success at my institution?
- What test score(s) should we use for placing students into different levels of math coursework?
- How can we quickly and easily identify students who may be at risk for not returning or completing their degrees?
The annual Validity Study research helped us to redesign our admission decisions, which led to a 12% increase in first-year retention.
—Associate vice president of enrollment management at a public four-year university
How It Works
- You create a secure ACES account (each user has a personal, not an institutional, account) and sign in to the ACES application.
- You design a study for your institution by choosing the test scores and other variables you want to analyze against a specified outcome.
- You upload a file of student data that meets the requirements of the requested study.
- Our team runs a comprehensive analysis of the data.
- You get a detailed, easy-to-understand report, along with interactive graphs, that clearly explains the relationship between the variables and the outcome you chose.
- You use the report to inform your institution’s policies.
Learn about our eight types of study.
The reports and results are so helpful and we can’t conduct this kind of study by ourselves.
—Assistant vice president of institutional effectiveness at a private four-year university
2018 Updates
We’ve made some changes to the ACES system, including new and redesigned features and reports, to better serve our users. ACES remains free of charge to institutions.
Online portal. We’ve revamped our portal: It now offers a simplified single sign-in for all your submissions. And intuitive, easy-to-use dashboards will make it easier to design your report, submit your data, and find data you’ve already uploaded and your available previous reports.
New studies. We’ve added two new studies to our offerings. Our Retention Study looks at student retention and our Completion Study looks at student degree completion, using SAT scores as a predictor.
New features in all reports, including:
- Interactive graphs
- The capability to compare study results year-over-year
- Helpful features such as flags for students at risk for not returning (for admission validity studies only)
- Faster results—ACES reports will now be available within 20 business days of a completed study request
[I think this kind of study] is hugely critical and meaningful, especially in consideration of the rapid changes in higher education.
—Strategic planning administrator at a public four-year university
Contact Us
Questions about ACES? Contact us as 800-439-8309 or [email protected].
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ACES Sample Admission Validity Study Report
Sample ACES report analyzing the relationship between SAT scores and student grades at your institution.
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ACES Sample Admission Validity Study Report: Interactive Graphics
Sample interactive graphs that accompany the above report.
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ACES Sample SAT Placement Validity Report
Sample ACES report analyzing the relationship between SAT scores and student success in specific courses.
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ACES Sample SAT Placement Validity Report: Interactive Graphs
Sample interactive graphs that accompany the above report.
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ACES Sample ACCUPLACER Placement Validity Report
Sample ACES report analyzing the relationship between ACCUPLACER scores and student success in specific courses.
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ACES Sample ACCUPLACER Placement Validity Report: Interactive Graphs
Sample interactive graphs that accompany the above report.
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ACES Sample AP Placement Validity Report
Sample ACES report analyzing how performance on AP Exams relates to student performance in sequent and subsequent coursework to evaluate credit and placement policies.
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ACES Sample AP Placement Validity Report: Interactive Graphs
Sample interactive graphs that accompany the above report.
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ACES Sample CLEP Placement Validity Report
Sample ACES report analyzing how performance on CLEP exams relates to student performance in sequent and subsequent coursework to evaluate credit and placement policies.
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ACES Sample CLEP Placement Validity Report: Interactive Graphs
Sample interactive graphs that accompany the above report.
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ACES Sample Completion Study Report
Sample ACES report evaluating the relationship between SAT scores (and other predictors of interest) and the likelihood of student completion at your institution.
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ACES Sample Completion Study Report: Interactive Graphics
Sample interactive graphs that accompany the above report.
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ACES Sample Retention Study Report
Sample ACES report analyzing the relationship between SAT scores (and other predictors of interest) and student retention at your institution.
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ACES Sample Retention Study Report: Interactive Graphics
Sample interactive graphs that accompany the above report.
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ACES Sample Year-over-Year Report
Sample ACES report examining trends in entering cohort admission measures (e.g. SAT scores, HSGPA, etc.) and their predictive relationships (e.g. with college GPA) over time, within and across student entering cohorts.
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ACES Sample Year-over-Year Report: Interactive Graphs
Sample interactive graphs that accompany the above report.