Meeting with your counselor to talk about and review your options
It is very important that one of the first things that you do is meet
with your counselor to find out what credit areas you need, what types
of credit they will accept, if you are eligible to take a DSST or CLEP
test and the college or university's policy. Do your homework before the
meeting to find out what tests you are interested in taking. Browse through
the list, if there is a topic on there that interests you or you think
to yourself "this looks easy" find out more about it. If you
already have experience in a test subject, it will make the studying that
much easier. However, there are a few things to consider.
Some schools only allow you to test out of a certain amount of credits.
At a local university, it may only be as much as 15 credit hours. At University
of Phoenix it is 30 credit hours. Some colleges do not place a limit on
the amount of credit you can receive by examination.
Some schools require a specific class title, not just credit in a certain
area. Your school may require Algebra 1010. If that is the case, they
will generally assign a list of classes to CLEP and DANTES tests. The
following is just an example of how it may look:
| CLEP/DSST Test |
Minimum Score |
Counts as this class |
| Principles of Macroeconomics |
50 |
MGMT 2020 |
| Introductory Psychology |
50 |
PSY 1010 |
| U.S. History I |
50 |
HIST 2700 |
There are several reasons to pay attention to their chart if they award
credit this way. You may or may not need the class that the CLEP or DSST
test counts as for graduation. You may be able to use the test for elective
or interdisciplinary credit. If you have taken the exact class before
you may not be eligible to take the test for credit.
Once you have the information from your school's academic advisor or
website and have verified it to be current, decide which test you wish
to take.
KEEP THIS IN MIND, some schools or counselors will
not want you to test out. They will discourage it and you. They will tell
you how hard it is to pass. This is for two reasons. The first, when you
test out, the college is losing your tuition money and while they have
an official policy accepting non-traditional credit, they may have an
unofficial policy of discouraging students.
The second reason is that
some educators do not believe that testing out benefits you as a student.
We at www.finishcollegefast.com however do. If you know the information then
there is no reason to sit in a class and learn it again. Take your extra
time and money and spend it on something like your family or a vacation.
You'll still have plenty of classes to take on campus to graduate.
