ACF Certification

Secchia Institute for Culinary Education

ACF Student Membership Applications*

During students' capstone coursework in the Culinary Arts Program (151), we collect data from students to submit a student membership application for the ACF National Membership on their behalf.

Entry Level ACF Certification by Graduation

*To comply with two years of reporting data, we collected data right at the certification source. We started with our 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 graduates. Then we entered student names individually through the Certification Verification tool at ACFChefs.org https://www.acfchefs.org/ACF/Certify/CertificationVerification/ACF/Cert…;

As far as tracking entry-level certification is concerned, we do not currently have a mechanism to track each student's progress in the industry and as an ACF member. Students who complete the ACF student application through the Secchia Institute for Culinary Education will most likely also meet the Certified
Culinarian (CC) requirements once they graduate.

Students may also meet the Certified Fundamentals Pastry Cook (CFPC) or Certified Pastry Culinarian (CPC) designation requirements once they graduate. It will be up to the individual student to complete the exam and the necessary documentation and work requirements. In many cases, that can take a year or
longer to complete.

The obvious shortcomings of this process are that any of our students could have changed their legal name since graduating. So this system is not a perfect way to do collect this data. Once we include a question about ACF certification level in future alumni surveys, both data collection methods will complement each
other.