The Client
Indiana Business College Indiana Business College’s number one goal has been to educate students and have them become productively employed. The college has developed an enviable reputation as a dedicated two-year Associate of Applied Science degree granting institution, graduating students from job-oriented programs into successful careers. Programs include accounting, administrative assistant, business administration, Cisco network associate, criminal justice, fashion merchandising, human resources, medical assistant, medical laboratory technology, and surgical technology, among many others.
IBC makes a lifelong commitment to its graduates, offering placement assistance/services, counseling, networking with employers and students, refresher courses and other programs all designed to ensure that IBC graduates get good jobs in their chosen fields.
The Solution
Scholastic Level Exam: The SLE is a short-form measure of cognitive ability or “ability to learn” - the most powerful predictor of training and job success. As a school aptitude test, it has been approved by the American Council on Education as a valid predictor of vocational training outcomes and accepted by all accrediting associations.
Used in Career School testing, the SLE is also the best single predictor of student academic success. Previous grade point average is not an adequate predictor of an individual’s capacity for learning and applying knowledge on the job. The SLE is a postsecondary test that is used by thousands of schools in their general admissions testing or educational testing programs.The SLE can be administered in individual or group settings for Career School testing purposes. The complete process, including scoring and interpretation, takes only 15 minutes.
The SLE helps:
- Evaluate training potential.
- Place students in programs for jobs that suit their learning speed and aptitude.
- Identify students who will need additional help with classroom work, before classes even begin - slower scoring students usually need more hands-on learning opportunities to succeed.
The SLE Helps Indiana Business College Choose Successful Students
At Indiana Business College, with its 11 campuses serving Indiana and surrounding areas, students have been acquiring skills that are critical for success in today’s highly competitive and oftentimes turbulent job market for more than a century. Unlike most four-year colleges and universities, IBC’s goal isn’t simply to educate its students. IBC goes the next step and offers career placement services to its graduates to help assist them in finding job opportunities.
The college has designed its two-year, Associate of Applied Science degree programs with the input of key business professionals who have identified what it takes to be successful within a chosen career field. Students may choose programs like accounting, administrative assistant, business administration, criminal justice, fashion merchandising, surgical technology and others.In addition to delivering a top-notch education to its students, IBC makes a commitment to the success of its graduates, doing all that it can to provide assistance so that they become employed in their chosen fields. The college offers placement services and networking to match graduates with job openings in their fields. It also works directly with area employers, providing them with a pipeline of qualified, educated, skilled workers for positions employers need to fill.
Because IBC is so committed to the education and success of its graduates, the admissions office needs to ensure that they’re admitting only the students who have the right stuff to succeed. That’s why IBC gives the Wonderlic Scholastic Level Exam (SLE) to each and every applicant pursuing Certificate, Diploma, or Associate Degrees, approximately 10,000 to 20,000 per year.“The SLE has been very successful for us,” says IBC’s Corporate Director of Recruitment, Charlene Sample. “The degree programs at Indiana Business College are academically challenging. We don’t want to put students in programs that they are not prepared for. We want to set our students up for success and help them to succeed. The SLE is one step in our admissions process that helps us determine their level of success in a fast–paced, hands–on environment.”
The SLE is a short-form measure of cognitive ability or “ability to learn” - the most powerful predictor of training and job success. As a school aptitude test, it has been approved by the American Council on Education as a valid predictor of vocational training outcomes and accepted by all accrediting associations.
Used in Career School testing, the SLE is also the best single predictor of student academic success.
Why not just simply look at high school transcripts for indicators of how well a student will fare at IBC? Sample explains that it’s difficult for IBC to use transcripts as a basis for admission because the majority of IBC’s students are older than the average college student. Since they’re not coming directly from high school - indeed, there might be a gap of several years - those old transcripts don’t offer an accurate indication of the student’s abilities or lack thereof.
“The majority of our students have been out of high school for several years,” says Sample. “Many times, their high school transcripts do not provide the information we need. The SLE has worked so well for us because it gives us a current assessment of a student’s cognitive ability.”
Sample explains that candidates take the SLE during an admissions interview.
“Under the guidelines of SLE, we give prospective students two opportunities to take the assessment,” she says. “If they don’t pass the assessment the second time, they can reapply in six months, based on the recommendation of the admissions representative.”
If students don’t pass the SLE after the second try, the admissions representatives encourage them to take refresher courses or programs at their local GED testing centers, libraries, schools, etc. We want these individuals to take the steps necessary to be successful in any college course.
In addition to utilizing the SLE to help recommend or not recommend prospective students Indiana Business College also looks at an individual’s SLE score to help schedule all first quarter students. There is a score requirement for all students wanting to go full-time, ¾-time, or part-time.
“If an applicant passes the SLE with a low score, we recommend that they take a part-time course load of just two classes because we do not want them to be overwhelmed,” Sample explains. “We want all of our students to succeed, and if they have a low SLE score, we feel they are not ready for a full course load. After their first full quarter, we evaluate how they have done. If the education department feels they have been successful and can handle a full-time schedule, then their schedule is adapted.”
Student success is the end goal for everyone at IBC, and the Wonderlic SLE is a powerful tool to ensure each student will get there.
