Much emphasis is placed on the formulation of the school’s purposes and objectives. Only when its goals are clear can the school discover the extent to which such purposes and objectives are being achieved.

Essential in the accreditation process is the self-survey made by an institution applying for accreditation. The self-survey is an analysis by its own staff of the institution’s educational resources and effectiveness in relation to its own purposes and objectives.

PAASCU judges an institution not by comparison with other institutions but primarily by the degree to which each institution’s own avowed purposes are matched by actual practice in the various areas being evaluated. Thus, a school is judged on the basis of the “total pattern” presented by it.