FAQ
ACES Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
General questions
How do I contact ACES?
You can reach ACES by telephone at (609) 683-2255, or by email at aces@info.collegeboard.org.
What types of colleges and universities can use ACES?
Any two-year or four-year institution that uses scores from College Board tests in their admission procedures and/or placement decisions. New users of College Board tests may work with the testing program and ACES to evaluate the potential use of the tests in their institution.
Can community colleges use ACES?
Yes.
How much does it cost to do an ACES validity study?
ACES is a free service of the College Board.
How frequently can a study be requested from the Admitted Class Evaluation Service (ACES)?
There is no limit to the number of studies you can request.
Which College Board testing programs are supported by ACES?
SAT™, SAT Subject Tests™, Advanced Placement Program® (AP®), ACCUPLACER, and the College Level Examination Program® (CLEP®).
When can validity studies be requested from the Admitted Class Evaluation Service (ACES)?
The service is Internet delivered. Whenever you have access to a computer with Internet access, you may request a study.
Can scores from our local tests be used as predictors in ACES studies?
Yes.
We do our own validity studies. Why would we want to do an ACES study?
ACES incorporates the findings of ongoing research efforts at the College Board and ETS®—e.g., adjustment for restriction of range—and provides you an opportunity to take advantage of these.
When ACES processes an admission validity study, one of the first steps is to match the student data provided by the college to our database of test scores and demographic information. In addition to your validity study, you will receive two copies of the matched file used to process your study, one in a text format and one in a Microsoft EXCEL format. It provides a valuable tool for you to use for further campus research.
I have just requested an ACES placement study for last year's students. I want to do another study for students who took the class two years ago. Do I need to wait for the first request to be processed before sending another?
Each request for an ACES study is assigned a unique set of passwords that you use to link to the data file you send for us to use in processing your study. Therefore, you may submit multiple requests for studies at the same time.
What level of security does ACES use for the student data files colleges send to them?
All ACES data storage and transmission is secured from end-to-end—that is, from the time it leaves the browser being used at the college until it passes beyond the ETS firewall. (ETS processes ACES studies for the College Board.) A combination of security tools and procedures, including Secure Socket Layer (SSL), Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), and ETS proprietary encryption techniques, are used.
We did an ACES study two years ago and would like to use the same study design again this year. Is there a way to pull up our previous study request and send it again with a new student data file?
Not at this time.
Is there a minimum number of student records required to complete an ACES study?
Yes. There must be at least 30 student records for a placement validity study (or more, depending on the number of predictors used and the type of placement study requested). A minimum of 75 student records is required for an admission study.
Can I save my ACES study design or data-submission information online and return to it at a later point in time?
Yes, we have added this feature to ACES. At the bottom of each study-design and data-submission page you will have the option to continue to the next page or save the information you have entered and exit the process. If you choose to save and exit, you will be e-mailed a login ID and password, as well as a link to the login page, in order to continue working on that same study request or data submission at a later time.
Will we receive a one-size-fits-all report when we request an ACES validity study?
No. ACES provides opportunities for institutions to customize their validity studies to more closely match the admission and placement decisions made at their specific college or university.
I don't have a lot of time to read reports—never mind trying to interpret a lot of statistical information. What does ACES offer to help me?
ACES delivers a compact report (just a few pages) packed with valuable information. Graphics let you quickly see the overall results of your study and view the characteristics of the students for whom the analyses were done. You will easily be able to find the correlation for each prediction measure with the criterion you chose.
For ease of interpretation, predictive and concurrent placement validity studies provide separate correlation tables for a college course grade of C or better and a course grade of B or better. In addition, the customized text provides important interpretive information for your study and serves as a general primer for placement studies.
The admission report includes a one-page comprehensive executive summary, Results at a Glance.
I have tried to understand other validity reports, but I just don't have the statistical background to get any meaning out of them. Will I most likely encounter the same frustration when trying to interpret an ACES report?
We hope not. ACES reports have been specially designed to provide nontechnical discussions of important findings. We designed them to be of value to those who have limited statistical background as well as useful to more technically savvy users. For ease of interpretation, there are many graphical presentations; interpretative text is provided to tell you what the numbers in your report mean and how to use them.
Some users find the amount of information overwhelming. Unfortunately, a good validity study cannot be simply presented as "this works" or "this doesn't work." Working through the report section by section can help you determine which information is important and which information can be ignored in your situation.
Is ACES in compliance with FERPA regulations?
FERPA permits educational institutions to disclose personally identifiable information from education records without parental or student consent to "organizations conducting studies for, or on behalf of, educational agencies or institutions for the purpose of developing, validating, or administering predictive tests". 20 U.S.C.A. § 1232g(b)(1)(F); see 34 C.F.R. § 99.31(a)(6)(i)(A).
The legislative history of this provision recognizes that organizations such as the College Board and ETS need student data in order to validate tests that institutions of higher education use to predict the potential success of their applicants. Joint Statement in Explanation of Buckley/Pell Amendment, 120 Cong. Rec. 39862, 39863 (Dec. 13, 1974) ("Organizations such as the Educational Testing Service [and] . . . the College Entrance Examination Board . . . develop and validate a number of tests which are used by institutions of higher education to predict the potential success of applicants for admission. These and other similar groups need student data in order to perform their function.").
The organization must conduct the study in a manner that does not permit personal identification of students and their parents by persons other than representatives of the organization, and the organization must destroy the data when no longer needed for the purposes for which the study was conducted. 20 U.S.C.A. § 1232g(b)(1)(F); see 34 C.F.R. 99.31(a)(6)(ii). See generally Letter from L. Rooker (U.S. Department of Education) to A. Foerster, Pennsylvania Department of Education (Feb. 25, 2004), available at http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/library/pacdc.html; Letter from L. Rooker (U.S. Department of Education) to A. Lloyd-Jones, California Department of Education (Feb. 18, 2004), available at http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/library/ca21804.html.
May I get a copy of a sample validity study?
Yes; sample reports are available online. During routine updates, some reports may be unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
View a sample admission report (.pdf/1.1M)
View a sample placement report (.pdf/890K)
Requires Adobe Reader (latest version recommended).
Sample reports represent sample data from hypothetical institutions and as such, results should not be generalized.
May we use scores from the SAT™ and the SAT Subject Tests™ in the same request for a validity study?
Yes. When you request a study using scores from the SAT® Program, you can select any single test or combination of tests (SAT and SAT Subject Tests).
May we use only the SAT critical reading scores in our ACES study?
Yes.
May we use only the SAT mathematical reasoning scores in our ACES study?
Yes.
May we use only SAT writing scores in our ACES study?
Yes.
Which SAT Subject Tests scores are used in ACES studies, highest or most recent?
The highest SAT Subject Tests scores are used for admission studies and the most recent scores are used for placement studies.
May we use scores from SAT Subject Tests tests only?
That is, must we include SAT scores in our study? For admission studies you must include SAT scores in your request. However, for placement studies the choice is up to you. You can use only scores from SAT Subject Tests tests, only scores from SAT, or a combination of scores across the tests.
What options do we have for using scores from the SAT Subject Tests language tests?
Scores from all the SAT Subject Tests language tests can be used. For tests that contain a listening section, the reading score, listening score, or combined scores can be used in placement studies.
Admission questions
How long does it take to complete an ACES admission validity study?
Studies will be completed 25 to 35 business days after receipt of data.
Can you share a copy of an actual ACES admission validity study with us?
Yes. Click here for a typical sample report for an admission study (.pdf/1.1M). Sample reports represent sample data from hypothetical institutions and as such, results should not be generalized.
Is there a way to do an admission validity study if we have fewer than 75 students in our enrolling class?
Yes; combine data for several recent classes. Choose the latest enrolling year for this combined group from the pull-down menu when you submit your data.
Placement questions
How long does it take to do an ACES placement validity study?
Studies will be completed within 40 business days.
Can you share a copy of an actual ACES placement validity study with us?
Yes. Click here for a typical sample report for a placement study (.pdf/873K). Sample reports represent sample data from hypothetical institutions and as such, results should not be generalized.
Is there a way to do a placement validity study if we have fewer than 30 students in a class?
Yes. If you have multiple sections of the same class, you can combine student information for the course. For example, the following scenario would be acceptable: English 101 classes taught by Professor Brown, Professor Green, and Associate Professor White.
If I have already submitted an ACES admission validity study data file that includes students’ coursework, do I need to resubmit a new data file in order to conduct a placement validity study with the same students?
No, ACES now allows you to use the same data file for admission and placement validity studies using SAT™ scores as predictors, provided that students’ coursework information was included in the original file submitted for the admission validity study. It is also important that you have at least 30 students with valid grades in the course(s) you are studying. (Note that it is often necessary to have at least 50 students in your sample, depending on the number of predictors chosen, as the results of your analyses will be more stable.)
The ACES placement validity study request web page will prompt you for your admission study request number and password in order to access your previously submitted data file. If you have misplaced this information, please contact aces@info.collegeboard.org.
We use scores from SAT Subject language tests in our placement decisions. May I use subscores from the language tests as predictors of success in our placement study?
Within a single request for a placement study, you have the option to choose the language test of interest and whether you wish to use the total score or one or more of the subscores. Since ACES gives you the option to complete five separate analyses within a single study, you can request the score from the total test to be used in the first analysis, the subscore from the listening test to be used in the second analysis, and finally, the subscore from the reading test to be used in the third analysis.
When we use ACES to do a placement validity study, may we use scores from different testing programs (ACCUPLACER® and SAT Subject Tests) at the same time?
ACES was designed to determine the predictive power of scores from one testing program at a time. Since ACES provides for up to five analyses within a single request, you can use ACCUPLACER scores for your first analysis and SAT Subject Test scores in your second, both within one request for an ACES placement validity study.
When we use ACES to do a placement validity study, may we do a study across several levels of the same college course, for example, across Remedial Math, Math 101, Math 102, and Honors Math?
ACES provides placement information for one level of a course per analysis. However, since ACES gives you the option to request five separate analyses within the same study request, you can ask for a separate analysis for each of the four levels of math courses you listed.
When we use ACES, may we get placement information for our math courses and our English courses at the same time?
Yes. ACES provides for up to five analyses within a single request for a study. You can use as many of the five analyses for English that you want and the remainder for math courses. Should you have more than five courses of interest, simply request two or more studies until you have been able to request an analysis for each course of interest to you.
We use SAT scores for admission and wonder if they would help us place students in courses? Which type of ACES placement validity study would help us?
You should request a placement validity report by selecting SAT and SAT Subject Tests.
Technical questions
May I send my student data to ACES as an email attachment instead of using the data-submission portion of the service?
No. Sending your data as an email attachment does not protect the confidentiality of the student records. ACES ensures the confidentiality of student data and the validity reports it generates. Please upload your data to ACES so that it is encrypted to ensure confidentiality.
Which format must I use to submit my student data to ACES?
Data may be submitted as a fixed-length ASCII file, a comma-delimited ASCII file, a tab-delimited ASCII file, a Microsoft ACCESS database, a Microsoft EXCEL workbook, an SAS transport file, or an SPSS portable file. Complex coding and data transformation are not required.
When you request a study, your responses to items on the request form create a customized template for you to use to tell us which file you are using and where data are stored on that file. If your file contains data not required for an ACES study, you do not need to remove this information before submitting the file. ACES will ignore all data on your file except those that you indicate should be used to process your study.
How should I label our student data file?
On the data-submission screen, please label your ACES file to identify the cohort of students it contains.
For example:
- 2001 Enrolling First-Year Students
- or
- English 101, 102, and 103
- or
- Core Classes Fall 1999
Likewise, on the data-submission screen, please include the cohort information in the name of the student data file. For example:
C:\English 101_102_103
I need a data layout to give to the person who is creating my data file for an ACES study. Where can I get one? The sample on the ACES website doesn't match what I want in my study.
The sample template on the ACES website is just that:: a sample. Your layout will be different. Each time a college requests an ACES study, a customized template (data layout collection device) is created to reflect the design for that study. This template is created using the responses supplied on the request form. Your template will show you all the data elements required, let you know which are supplied by ACES, and provide places for you to enter information to tell us where your data reside on the file you are sending us.
Once you submit a request for an ACES study, you will receive a set of passwords in an email message. If you are requesting an admission study, this email will also contain a link to Data Preparation Guidelines that will help you collect and submit the data for your study.
After successfully receiving the set of passwords, go to start an admission study or a placement study. The left side of this Web page has a menu column. Click on "submit data." Use the passwords to get into this section of ACES. You will then find the template that reflects your request for a study. You can print these pages to give to the person who will prepare the data file. You can exit these Web pages and return to them, using your password, as many times as you wish, as long as you do not click on the "Submit Data" button at the bottom of the page. Once you have your student data file ready, you can upload and then submit it to ACES.
I am having problems uploading my data to ACES. What is wrong?
First, a few institutions have found there were campus limitations for the size of files that can be uploaded. Their problem was resolved by working with their local administrators to raise such ceilings to fit their needs. You should contact your campus administrators to ask if the size of your file is a problem.
Second, check the size of the file you are sending to make sure it is within the ACES file size limitation of 15 MB.
Third, close your browser and try again. Sometimes closing the browser and trying again (after about an hour break) resolves temporary network problems.
Fourth, we have found uploading data can be a problem if there is a large amount of local traffic on the campus network at the time the files are being uploaded to ACES. Submitting data early in the morning or late afternoon resolved the problem for the colleges and universities who reported this problem to us.
Finally, if you are still having problems, please contact us. We can be reached at the following email address: aces@info.collegeboard.org
Or you may call us at (609) 683-2255.
When contacting ACES, please be prepared to provide the answers to the following questions:
- What were you attempting to do when the problem happened?
- What type of browser were you using? Which version?
- Were you able to get to the ACES site? If not, were you able to get to another site using your browser?
- What is the name of the ACES Web page on which the error occurred?
- What was the last action you took?
- What was the error message you received?
- Did you try it more than once? If so, did the same thing happen each time?
What level of security does ACES use for the student data files colleges send to them?
All ACES data storage and transmission is secured from end to end—that is, from the time it leaves the browser being used at the college until it passes beyond the ETS firewall. (ETS processes ACES studies for the College Board.) A combination of security tools and procedures is used, including Secure Socket Layer (SSL), Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), and ETS proprietary encryption techniques.