ES4200 - General Assessment Requirements

1. Institutional Regulations
   
   This procedure outlines assessment requirements for admission.
    
2. Procedures
   1. Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC) requires skills assessment as determined by the student’s selected program of study. When a student applies to DMACC they will receive via email a checklist generated by Admissions that indicates the assessment(s) required for the designated program of study. Students need to complete the assessment requirements as indicated on the checklist to be admitted into the selected program of study.
   2. If not required through the Admission checklist, new students and students with five (5) years or older college experience are strongly encouraged to take the Next Generation Accuplacer  assessment. The assessment provides information about students’ academic skills in reading and writing, which may be used to assist with course selection and schedule planning. 
      1. The College does not charge for Next Generation Accuplacer assessment but does require a two-week waiting period between testing times with a strong recommendation to seek remediation for the area(s) in need of retesting.
      2. For programs of study requiring Next Generation Accuplacer assessment, students may submit ACT scores to meet DMACC’s assessment requirements. Act scores must be mailed to the Admission office.
      3. The following criteria are used to grant assessment waivers:
         1. Writing grade of C or higher in a college-level writing course;
         2. Reading grade of C or higher in 6 hours of college-level academic course work such as psychology, sociology, economics, etc. and/or vocational technical course work requiring comparable reading skills;
         3. Math grade of C or higher in a college-level math course. ALEKS assessment may be required for students that wish to take additional math courses at DMACC.
   3. Pre-high school, high school, home school and guest students must meet the College assessment requirements as stated in ES4100 and ES4202.
   4. Students who have not already taken ALEKS and wish to enroll for the first time in a math course at DMACC will be required to take the ALEKS math placement assessment before registering in a math class. See the ALEKS homepage for further requirements/recommendations.  Math Placement (dmacc.edu)
   5. For purposes of admission, international students must meet the College assessment requirements for math and provide official evidence of English proficiency as stated in ES4205.
   6. Students needing a disability related accommodation to complete an assessment requirement must provide documentation of the disability prior to testing. Students are to contact the Disabilities Services Coordinator at Ankeny, the counseling/advising office or Dean’s/Provost’s/Associate Provost’s office on any campus for an Application for Accommodation. The necessary accommodations will be arranged with the testing center in advance of the testing time.

March 14, 2023 - Revised by Sharon Bittner.

March 20, 2023 - Added link to ALEK’s Home Page.

Note: Links for the procedures and websites will need to be added. This is noted in the procedure.