FA700025SC001 Call 005 - USAFA Admissions AI Transcript.pdf

RAPID ACQUISITION CSO CALL 005

FA700025SC001

U.S. Air Force Academy

Focused Interest Period - USAFA-002, ACADEMICS – 005 USAFA AI High School

Transcript Reading and Scoring Capability

1.1. This is Call 005 placed against the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) Rapid

Acquisition Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) FA700025SC001. The Area of Interest

(AoI) is USAFA-002, Academics. The Base CSO is a closed CSO with calls. Calls for proposals will be issued by the Government as amendments to this CSO and may be made at any time during its open period when support for innovative commercial requirements supporting USAFA priorities are identified. Please refer to the body of the CSO for further information and a complete overview of the function and process of the CSO. Offerors may submit proposals only in response to a specified area of interest issued during an open call for proposals. The focused area of interest described in this call will be open for submission until 6 May 2026 at 10:00 a.m. MST.

1.2. The United States Air Force Academy has a focused interest in exploring solutions to maximize USAFA’s ability to process large volumes of high school and college transcripts rapidly and uniformly, dramatically reducing turnaround times, while upholding rigorous standards to maintain continuity and accuracy ensuring that each applicant is assessed fairly and consistently. USAFA is seeking vendors capable of implementing an Artificial

Intelligence (AI)-powered automated transcript processing and scoring solution that will be able to read and score high school and college transcripts received from applicants who have applied to attend USAFA. USAFA has an estimated yearly class size of 1,200 Cadets. The anticipated award will have one base year period of performance with 4 option years.

1.2.1. Mandatory requirements. The solution must meet the following minimum requirements:

Program Goal:

The Directorate of Admissions at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) seeks a qualified vendor to implement an AI-powered automated transcript processing and scoring solution.

The specific objectives are to:

1. Streamline transcript processing from all 50 U.S. states and U.S. territories

2. Improve accuracy, consistency, and efficiency

3. Reduce manual data entry

4. Accelerate application review timelines

Scope of Work:

1. Configuration

2. Integration with Salesforce CRM

3. Implementation

4. Training

5. Ongoing support

6. Performance monitoring

7. The solution must be a template-free AI based platform capable of extracting data from high school transcripts from all 50 U.S. States and the U.S. Territories

8. The system must continuously improve accuracy through machine learning and user corrections

9. Solutions that do not employ artificial intelligence will not be considered

10. Personably identifiable information such as student name, parent name, student/parent address, social security number cannot be used in the AI solution

11. Impact level 4 (IL4) processing environment is preferred.

Contractor Functional Requirements:

The solution must:

1. Be tailored to the Air Force Academy’s needs and integrate seamlessly with our

Salesforce System and other existing systems as necessary

2. Accurately and efficiently extract and standardize key transcript data elements, including but not limited to:

a. Class rank

b. Class size

c. High school name

d. School CEEB code (or equivalent identifier)

e. Graduation date and year

f. Date issued

g. Course name

h. Course subject

i. Course grade (term and/or final)

j. Course credit

k. Course level/weight/rigor (standard college prep, honors, dual enrollment, AP, IB, etc.)

l. Academic year/grade level

3. Convert GPA scales to a standardized 4.0 scale and a configurable USAFA scale.

4. Identify excluded courses in the model.

5. Provide reports on missing courses such as Algebra II, pre-calculus, chemistry and physics and deduct determined values from the scoring model.

6. Allow course rigor to be included in the scoring model.

7. Identify and validate the presence of official signatures or certification indicators.

8. Support custom calculations and configurable course and configurable course groupings aligned with USAFA’s business processes.

9. Achieve a minimum of 93% initial accuracy rate, with machine learning capabilities to improve toward 99% accuracy within one admissions cycle (nine months).

10. Leverage a centralized transcript knowledge base (if applicable) to improve processing for less frequently received transcripts.

11. Knowledge bases and data must be obtained through lawful, contractual based sources and cannot use scraped data, purchased data sets, or resold third party data for training purposes

a. All USAFA data both ingested and produced cannot be used in other systems for training or other purposes and is wholly owned by the Air Force Academy.

12. Provide a user interface that allows end users to review and correct extracted data prior to insertion into CRM/SIS, with AI learning from corrections.

13. Process both individual transcripts and large batch uploads.

14. Determine transcript type (sixth, seventh, or eighth semester) and deduplicate previous versions.

15. Process transcripts 24/7/365.

16. Provide a turnaround time of no more than two calendar days from initial upload from

USAF to return of data for review.

17. Support various file types including but not limited to:

a. PDF

b. Image files to include but not limited to:

i. JPEG

ii. JPG

iii. HEIF

iv. HEIC

v. BMP

vi. TIFF

c. Color and black and white

d. Portrait and landscape orientations

e. Non-standard document sizes

18. Provide a customizable dashboard to track performance metrics and confidence levels to include:

a. Number of transcripts reviewed by each user;

b. Number of applicants lacking specified courses such as precalculus, chemistry, and physics; and

c. Number of applicants taking specified courses such as AP or IB calculus, AP or

IB English, AP Chemistry, AP Physics, etc.

19. Natural language processing of custom queries is preferred.

20. Offer unlimited or scalable user licensing or contract based on transcript volume with up to 20 users.

Integration Requirements

The solution must:

1. Seamlessly integrate with the USAFA Salesforce CRM.

2. Import and export standardized data from and back into Salesforce e.g. Secure File

Transfer Protocol (SFTP) or other methods that do not directly access the Salesforce system.

U.S. Air Force Academy

Vendors should describe prior integration experience with Salesforce and other export and import data methods that do not directly access the system to reduce security risks, field layouts, and data transfer capability.

Implementation Requirements

Vendors must:

1. Provide a detailed implementation plan, including timeline and resource allocation.

2. Deploy the configured/customized solution within a maximum of 16 weeks with the suggested milestones:

a. Initial Post-Award Kickoff Meeting (Virtual/Teleconference preferred) NLT 14 days after contract award

b. Completion of requirements NLT + 5 weeks

c. Completion of initial programming/customization NLT + 9 weeks

d. Configuration, implementation, integration with Salesforce, and testing NLT + 13 weeks

e. Training NLT + 15 weeks

3. Meet the target go-live date/initial operational capability (IOC) of 1 Oct 26.

4. Monitor implementation progress and proactively address challenges.

5. Avoid additional implementation fees unless mutually agreed upon.

Training and Support

The vendor must provide:

1. Comprehensive initial training to include manuals, web-based training solutions, and initial individual training for up to 12 individuals.

2. Post-implementation support to include follow-up meetings with the vendor on at least a monthly basis throughout the first admissions cycle.

3. Ongoing product maintenance and development to identify and correct current bugs and create potential new features for follow on admissions cycles.

4. Support monitoring and quality assurance services to avoid degradation in AI accuracy.

5. Support should be included in the pricing structure and clearly defined in the proposal.

USAFA IT and Security Requirements

U.S. Air Force Academy

The solution must:

1. Encrypt all web access (HTTPS).

2. Encrypt all data stored by the vendor.

3. Be cloud-based.

4. Support integration with USAFA authentication systems (e.g. SSO).

5. It is preferred that the solution operates in an Impact Level 4 (IL4) environment. Other proposed security solutions must be fully detailed and meet industry security requirements.

6. The solution cannot use any Personally Identifiable Information (PII)in the AI processing to include but not limited to:

a. Name of Candidate

b. Name of Parents

c. Address of Candidate

d. Address of Parents

e. Candidate’s phone number

f. Parents’ phone number

g. Candidate’s email address

h. Parent’s email address

i. Any social security numbers

j. Birth dates

k. The intent is that the OCR reader will not read or store any PII from the transcript nor store any PII in their system.

7. Allow flexible and extensible role-based access control.

8. Support multi-role user access without requiring multiple accounts.

9. Allow configuration of session controls aligned with USAFA security standards including multifactor authentication.

10. Be compatible with major web browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, etc.).

1.3. Any questions regarding this focused area of interest or utilizing this CSO may be directed to the following POC’s (do NOT send Phase I submissions, please refer further below for submission instructions):

• Org Box: 10CONS.PKB.CSO@us.af.mil

• Attn/Cc: Amy Krause, Contract Specialist, amy.krause.1@us.af.mil

Nicole Cibula, Contracting Officer, nicole.cibula@us.af.mil

1.4. Submissions should present combinations of methods, capabilities, and new technological solutions to implement AI-powered automated high school and college transcript processing and scoring.

1.5. Submission guidelines:

1.5.1. This call will be conducted in two or three phases as described in the body of the

CSO. The Government reserves the right to forgo Phase II and go directly to Phase III.

Submission instructions for this call will follow the submission guidelines outlined in

Part 5 of the body of the CSO.

1.5.2. Interested offerors must submit Quad Charts and Solution Briefs prepared in accordance with the formats in Attachments 1 and 2 respectively in the body of the

CSO. Phase I submissions will be evaluated against criteria as described in Attachment

7 of this CSO.

1.5.2.1. All Quad Charts shall include the information indicated on the sample template in Attachment 1.

1.5.2.2. The Solution Brief narrative expands on the Quad Chart presentation.

Instructions for format and content are located in Attachment 2.

1.5.3. As described in Attachment 7, the Government will determine the most technically competent and capable of the qualified Phase I offerors using the criteria below:

1.5.3.1. Technical merit/applicability;

1.5.3.2. Importance to agency programs; and

1.5.3.3. Funds availability.

1.5.4. Solution Briefs and quad chart submissions shall be sent to

10CONS.PKB.CSO@us.af.mil for review by 6 May 2026 at 10:00 a.m. MST. All solution briefs must be unclassified. The Government will not pay companies for the costs associated with solution brief submissions.

1.5.5. All offerors providing Phase I submissions will be contacted by the Government, either with an email letter informing them that the effort proposed is not of interest to the Government at this time or with a request for either a pitch session OR request for proposal by a specific date.

1.5.6. The Government reserves the right to fund all, some, one, or none of the proposals submitted or may elect to fund only part of a submission under this CSO.