What is a completion descriptor in an ACES Completion Study, and how is that incorporated in the study?

Completion descriptors are indicators that you optionally create when designing your completion study. They define characteristics potentially associated with noncompleting students and are constructed by specifying a cutoff value for any of the SAT score, HSGPA, or college GPA predictors.

Students at or below the cut-point on the predictor are identified and several tables and graphs in the study present how many noncompleting students exhibit these characteristics, singly and in combination, providing additional insight into noncompleting students. For example, if HSGPA is a predictor, then at your institution, students with a HSGPA at or below 3.0 might be considered more at risk and a completion descriptor could be defined on this basis.