In today's educational climate, liberal arts institutions must demonstrate that their educational goals are being met. This paper presents reliability and stability testing of a concise, research-based survey instrument designed to examine student perceptions of academic experiences that is particularly suited to institutions rooted in the liberal arts. The Academic Experiences Survey (AES) consists of five scales: Comfortable in College, Skills, Interdisciplinary Understanding, Liberal Arts Integration, and Future Academic Plans. We present data from administrations at two institutions; examining the instrument's validity as prediction of college retention and graduation, enrollment in STEM courses, and longitudinal changes over the course of students' first year in college.