When Do You Take CLEP Exams?

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Did you get any college credit from CLEP exams?  When?  Senior year?  Did you do it on your own or use that CollegePlus! website you have to pay for their services?

Dear Susan,
Thank you for asking this question at my “Preparing to Homeschool High School” seminar last weekend!

We did do college credit by exam, and our college allows each student to earn up to one year of college credit through CLEP exams.  One son had many more CLEP exams than they accepted, and he ended up with one year of credit.  My other son didn’t have quite a whole year of credit, but he was still given college credit for the 7 exams he passed. Of course, college credit is completely at the discretion of the college, and policies will vary widely.  Our exams were accepted by 3 of the 4 colleges we applied to.  The fourth college didn’t give us college credit, but it did help us with our application and admission to that college.

We took the exams over the summer before senior year, so that I could include them on their transcript when they applied to college.  I did it myself using the techniques in these two books:
Accelerated Distance Learning and Bears’ Guide.

CollegePlus! is an organization that will help you through the process of coordinating exams.  If you are just taking a few course, you may not need it.  If you have a complicated situation, or you want to obtain a degree with distance learning, then you may decide it’s worth it to get their help.
Here is a link to CollegePlus!

I have written an article about our experience homeschooling college, in case you are interested.  It’s called “Homeschool College This Summer.”