Lee, I know your boys did the “CLEP route” before going to college. Did this shorten the number of credits they had to take in college? And, are you familiar with the program College Plus? Do you have any thoughts on this company? Thanks,
~ Kitty in Washington
We did use CLEP to achieve one year of college by exam. The biggest deal is to make sure the university you want to go to will accept those credits. The college my children attend, Seattle Pacific University, accepts one year of credit by exam. We also had one year of community college, so they both ended up beginning the university as a junior.
Because of their full tuition scholarships, we were not constrained by finances, and the kids were allowed to take 4 years to graduate anyway. For my son the engineer, it was imperative to take four years. For an engineering student, it’s extremely difficult to accelerate a four year degree. I’ve know kids with an A.A. degree from community college who STILL take four more years to get an engineering degree from a university. My guess is that most hard sciences are the same way – difficult to speed up. I do know one biology major who graduated in two years, I guess. But that’s only one.
My younger son the political science major has also gone to the university for 4 years, but in his case it was optional. As a social science major (politics and economics) it would have been easy for him to graduate within two years. Because he was young, we told him to take any classes that he wanted to and graduate in four years. He took additional French, Latin, Math, Piano, and Philosophy classes just for the love of learning. He is also graduating after four years, but he could have easily graduated in two years.
CLEP can shorten the number of credits you take in college. It depends on the college policy about CLEP, and it also depends on your major and whether it is possible to CLEP the classes that you need. We found that CLEP not only gave us college credits, documenting our homeschool and greatly strengthening their application, which helped them get great scholarships.
The unexpected benefit of CLEP was being able to afford four years of college after all!
I’m very familiar with CollegePlus! I think they are a great organization, with a great Christian worldview. They are most helpful with for degrees in the humanities, business and computers fields. There are fewer choices for engineering or the more technical fields of study. Here is a link to the degrees they can assist with. They also offer a wonderful mentoring program for students as they work through their college course of study.
If you only want to homeschool college for a year, or if you are highly organized and motivated to do it yourself, it’s completely possible to work
independently. I recommend that you read these two books on the subject: Accelerated Distance Learning and Bears’ Guide .
I do have a website devote to homeschooling college .
Finally, here is a blog post I’ve written about this issue in the past.
The HomeScholar Gold Care Club will give you the comprehensive help and individualized coaching you need to homeschool high school.
Related posts
- CLEP Study Recommendations
- Home School Education - Is the AP or CLEP Exam Better for Homeschoolers?
- Using CLEP on a High School Transcript
- Home School Education - Homeschool College this Summer!
- Mommy Grades! What Good Are They?
- Do I have to use CLEP Results on my Homeschool Transcript?
- CLEP Study Helps - Part 2
- CLEP Results
- More Competitive with CLEP?
- Online Classes, Community College, AP, and CLEP?
Christianbook.com Curriculum Page
Carol Daufen says:
Hi Lee,
I attended your classes at the recent Homeschool Conference in Cincinnati. Just noticed your post on fb and read the entire article. You mentioned your sons completed one year of college via clepping and one year via the local CC. And, you mentioned full-tuition scholarships. I was told at the conference (can’t remember if it was a speaker or a homeschooling mom) that if your child attends a CC, that eliminates your opportunity/possibility for a scholarship. This obviously isn’t true–at least, it wasn’t in your sons’ cases. Please clarify this for me–thanks!
April 26th, 2010 at 5:45 am
Melissa in TN says:
Carol~ I am not Lee but I think I can answer the question:) Your child can take CC classes until they graduate from high school(as either Dual Enrollment or Concurrant enrollment) & they should not affect your child status as an incoming freshman~ Once they graduate from HS then they are no longer earning dual/concurrant they are earning CC credits & that can & will affect status~ Then they are transfer students not incoming freshmen~ I asked a few of the school in my area what the max # of dual credit/Clep credits a student could have before it affected their status. I was told that in TN as long as the student took the classes as a high school student they would be considered incoming Freshmen & it would not affect their scholarship oppurtunities~ You need to call your end schools & ask their policy each school will have a differnt number of CLEP & CC’s hours they will accept~
HTH’s
Melissa
April 26th, 2010 at 6:35 am
Caitlin says:
Hi Lee,
I was a homeschooled kid who wanted to try out the real world. I went to community college for a year before getting frustrated by the slow learning pace (there are such things as stupid questions!), the anti-Christian environment, and the price of the system. I ended up going through a college coaching company and got my BA in a total of 3 years and for under $20,000.
I’ve been working as a writer and ended up joining CollegePlus! because I believe in the style of education so much. I’d encourage anyone to look into CLEPing out of a year or two of college.
Good luck with your boys!
June 29th, 2010 at 11:29 am