An ABET general review puts a small team of volunteers on campus for about three days. Who those people are, where they come from and what each one does is set out in ABET's Accreditation Policy and Procedure Manual for the 2026-27 review cycle. For a program preparing for a visit, and for anyone thinking of volunteering, knowing the roles explains a great deal about how a review actually runs.

The team chair

Every team has a chair, who is typically a current member of the ABET commission reviewing the program (engineering, computing, engineering technology, or applied and natural science). The chair leads the visit, speaks for the team at the exit meeting, and is the institution's main contact before and after the visit. When a review covers programs under more than one commission, it becomes a joint review and each commission supplies its own chair.

The chair's role continues after the visit. Corrections of fact go to the chair in the week after the exit meeting, and for interim reviews that involve a written report only, a team chair typically reviews the report alone.

The program evaluators

The rest of the team is made up of program evaluators, usually one for each program under review, with a typical minimum of three team members in all. Evaluators are drawn from approved lists kept by the lead member society for each program's field, in consultation with any cooperating societies. A mechanical engineering program gets an evaluator from the list of the society that leads the mechanical engineering program criteria; a computer science program gets one from CSAB's list. Where no lead society exists for a field, commission leadership makes the selection after consulting the program and the interested societies.

Evaluators are practitioners and faculty from the field, which is the point of the design: the person reading a program's assessment data and transcripts knows what the discipline expects.

The observer seat

A visit may include observers, at the discretion of the team chair and the institution. ABET's manual names three typical kinds: newly trained program evaluators getting experience before their first assignment, members of state licensing boards, and representatives of ABET's international partners. Observers are bound by the same confidentiality and conflict-of-interest policies as the team.

The school's say in who comes

Before the team is finally appointed, the institution may review every assigned member, and it may reject a team member only for a real or perceived conflict of interest: a former employee, a recent consultant, a close collaborator. Disagreeing with a member's views is not grounds. Programs should check the names promptly when they arrive, because a late objection disrupts a schedule that involves several volunteers' travel.

The shape of the visit

A visit normally runs three days from arrival to departure, typically Sunday through Tuesday, though the length can be adjusted. It ends with an exit meeting at which the team presents its preliminary findings orally to the institution's chief executive or a designee, and the team leaves a copy of each Program Audit Form with the dean or another academic officer. The institution then has seven days to send the chair corrections of any errors of fact.

The team does not decide the accreditation action. Its findings go into a draft statement, the institution responds, and the commission votes at its July meeting.

For anyone who wants to serve

Program evaluators are nominated through the member societies, which keep the approved lists, and complete ABET's training before their first visit. Observing a visit is part of how new evaluators learn the work. The member society for your field is the place to ask about its nomination process and current needs.

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