Accelerate your success with the Kelley Advanced Curricular Experience (ACE) Program

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While most students in the Kelley Business Honors Program enter as sophomores, the Kelley Advanced Curricular Experience (ACE) Program provides a business honors experience for top students in their first year. This unique opportunity is offered to fewer than 100 Kelley Direct Admit first-year students. Participants in the ACE program will:

  • Be academically challenged through a first-year cohort model that includes BUS-C106 Honors Business Presentations with BUS-A 100: Basic Accounting Skills in the fall and BUS-K204 Honors: Foundations of Business Information Systems and Decision Making with BUS-T 176: Honors Compass I in the spring

  • Receive mentoring from Kelley Business Honors senior students and advising from Kelley Business Honors advisors

  • Develop leadership and professional skills with faculty and guest speakers through seminars, luncheons, and community-building events

Application criteria

The ACE Program is designed specifically for a small group of well-rounded, high-performing first-year students. Application for the ACE Program is by invitation only and includes approximately four percent of the incoming Kelley Direct Admit class. Students are invited to apply via email in February and are selected based on a variety of factors including GPA and a thorough high school transcript review, along with a review of SAT/ACT scores. Invited students typically demonstrate a 3.9+ unweighted GPA and hold a composite ACT score of 34+ and/or an SAT score of 1520+, if available.

In-person interviews will take place during the first Direct Admit Day weekend, March 7 to 8. Fill out the ACE application, and then register for DA Day to secure your interview. More information will be communicated to applicants closer to the interview date.

RSVP for DA Day

Accommodations will be made for students not able to travel to Bloomington

Application deadline

Invitations to apply to ACE will be emailed in early February.

Application deadline: February 26

Applicants will be notified of admission in early April.

For more info, contact ksbhonor@iu.edu.

Outcomes

The Kelley ACE Program is a rigorous one-year program. After their year in ACE, students will have successfully completed 7.5 credits of honors coursework. The ACE sections are designed to be smaller and are exclusive to Kelley ACE students. These unique versions of our hallmark first-year courses are designed to give ACE students a leg up in networking, faculty relationships, and professionalism.

Successful completion of the ACE Program and a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.7 will result in an offer of admission to the Kelley Business Honors Program, which runs sophomore through senior year.

Interested in Kelley Honors?

Students who do not participate in the ACE Program but want an honors experience should consider applying for the Kelley Business Honors Program spring of first year. 

 

“ACE is a tight-knit community of peers driven by similar motivations. It provided me with a support system of advisors that made me feel valued and professors whose conversational style felt like sitting down at the dinner table with family.”

Emily Meinzen, BS’24

Meet the future of business

If you’d like to become a partner or plan a visit to learn more about the Advanced Curricular Experience (ACE) Program and its exceptional students, visit our Office of Development and Engagement.

Thanks to our corporate partner: