Admissions decisions have long leaned on the same cognitive measures — SAT, ACT, GPA — even as evidence mounts that these scores tell an incomplete story about who will actually succeed in college. The students most likely to thrive aren’t always the ones with the highest test scores. And the students most likely to struggle aren’t always the ones you’d predict.
The Applicant Success Assessment gives institutions a sharper lens. Built on the science of personality, it measures seven well-established non-cognitive attributes — each of which has been shown to predict academic performance independently of cognitive ability:
Together, these dimensions produce a percentile-based profile for each applicant and a concrete probability of persistence at your institution.
In a post-affirmative action landscape, the ASA offers something traditional measures cannot: a legally sound path to building a diverse, high-achieving class. Because scores are not adversely impacted by sex, race, or ethnicity, institutions can make admissions decisions grounded in individual potential rather than demographic proxies — without running afoul of the regulatory environment that now governs race-conscious admissions.
The ASA is an internet-based survey of 55 questions, designed to be straightforward for students to complete. Each student receives an individual report presenting their scores across all seven dimensions, an interpretation of what those scores mean in an academic context, and an estimated probability of persistence. Institutions receive a full data file — including predicted success probabilities for every student surveyed — which can be layered onto existing admissions data.
For institutions new to the ASA, we recommend starting with incoming freshmen, along with a sample of your most engaged graduating students. Studying your highest-achieving students reveals the specific personality profile that predicts success at your institution — and that profile becomes the foundation for a custom model used in all future admissions and retention decisions.
Retention is a financial issue as much as an academic one. Every student who leaves before graduating represents lost tuition revenue, a lower graduation rate, and a missed opportunity. Recruiting the right students and supporting them from the start are among the highest-leverage decisions an institution can make.
