Any advice?

[laurelhills]

Hey,

I've just recently found out about CLEPs and have only taken one (College Composition Mod.) and was just wondering if anyone could give me some advice on which CLEPs to take and why. My next two CLEPs will be College Composition and College Algebra. I'm still in high school and I'm not quite sure what degree I want yet so any test advice is fine. I'm thinking of dual enrolling @ Liberty University and getting an AA in General Studies. Can anyone tell me about DSST and any other types of tests?

Thank you so much!

[TMW2010]

Hey,

I've just recently found out about CLEPs and have only taken one (College Composition Mod.) and was just wondering if anyone could give me some advice on which CLEPs to take and why. My next two CLEPs will be College Composition and College Algebra. I'm still in high school and don't know what degree I want yet so any test advice is fine. Can anyone tell me about DSST and any other types of tests?

Thank you so much

Without knowing your goals, the school you intend to be sending the credits to, etc., its hard to recommend any tests.

Why are you taking College comp again if you've already taken it? **Edit** Saw why in another post. Nevermind this question. But be sure that the school you're planning on transfering to will accept it. I know some local schools around here that do not accept it, as well as schools like Excelsior which don't, either.

As far as DSSTs and other tests (and other means of getting credit, such as ACE approved courses, ALEKs, Straighterline, and such,) the forum search feature is an invaluable tool.

[laurelhills]

"Why are you taking College comp again if you've already taken it?"

Thanks for the advice, about the College comp, I took the Modular, which doesn't have an essay, so I'm going to take College Composition,which has the essay.

thanks

[laurelhills]

"As far as DSSTs and other tests (and other means of getting credit, such as ACE approved courses, ALEKs, Straighterline, and such,) the forum search feature is an invaluable tool."

Just curious,

what's the "forum search feature", is it on IC? I'm new so IDK!

thanks

[laurelhills]

Found it, never mind... I feel so smart LOL!

[rmroberts]

As TMW2010 stated, we can't give much advice w/o knowing degree and college. I am going to tell you what I would do in your situation (actually very similiar to what I am doing). I would get a degree from Thomas Edison State College so that you can test out of all but one class (TESC only gives a gpa for courses you take from them, so I am just taking one class for the gpa). And I would get it in a "clep-able" degree such as psychology, business, or general studies. I am getting my degree in psychology just so I can test out of most of it and then I am going to get my master's degree to do what I really want to do-teach. I am still going to be done much quicker than if I just got my bacheloer's degree to teach. So you could just get a general degree and then when you figure out what you really want to do, get a masters.

If you would rather go through Liberty, make sure you look at these pages for each of your testing options: CLEP, DSST, and ECE.
Here is LU's degree plan for an AA in general studies and how you could plug tests in:

BTW: LU states 15 credits must be completed through them.
ENGL 101 Composition & Rhetoric 3 - You could do College comp. or college comp modular for 101. Liberty only gives 3 credits for this instead of 6.
ENGL 102 Composition & Literature 3 - Class
Communications Elective 3 - I'm not sure what would fit here. Maybe Public Speaking DSST
MATH Math Elective (MATH 115 or higher) 3 - College Math CLEP. Again LU only offfers 3 credits instead of 6
PHIL 104 Contemporary Worldviews 3 - Class
Natural Science Elective 3 - Natural Science CLEP. LU actuall does give 6 credits for this one, so I gues the other 3 would fall in general ed. electives
History Elective 3 - You have many test options here.
Social Science Elective 3 - Into to Sociology CLEP
Humanities Elective 3 - Humanities CLEP. LU offers 3 credits instead of 6
PHIL 201 Philosophy & Contemporary Ideas 3 - Class
BIBL 104 Survey of Biblical Literature 3 - Class
THEO 104 Introduction to Christian Thought 3 - Class
And that leaves you with 21 General Ed. Electives You can look at the links above to see what you want to put here.

I personally think you would be better off going through TESC unles you really want to go through a Christian school or something like that. As you probably noticed, Liberty only gives 3 credits for quite a few tests most you could get 6 for elsewhere. At TESC, you can use FEMAs (search if you don't know what they are) for almost all your free electives which is a huge plus. If you want me to I could show you how you could plug all the tests into TESC's degree plan.

[laurelhills]

Thank you so much,

I had no idea about all of that! I had never heard of FEMA's before, I'll look furtherinto them. About the colleges, I'll look into TESC, I've heard a lot about them. Thanks for going through all that trouble, that would be awesome if you could plug in all the tests for TESC's degree plan.

Thanks again!

[rmroberts]

Here is the link to TESC's credit distribution for an AA in General Studies. And this page shows how they classify the cleps and dssts.

I. General Education 48
A. English Composition 6 - College Comp. (with essay)
B. Humanities (must include two subject areas) 12 - You could do Humanities CLEP and Analyzing and Interpreting Literature CLEP. I did A&I plus technical writing and Intro to world religions because I failed humanities using speedyprep before I found out about InstantCert, but that is a whole different story.
C. Social Sciences (must include two subject areas) 12 - You have a wealth of options here. Look at the above link. Find what you like. I am definately not a history person, so I avoided all history tests.
D. Natural Sciences 9
One college-level mathematics course (required) (3) - College Math or ALEKS.
One computer science course (strongly recommended) (3) - Intro to Computing DSST
Other natural sciences/mathematics (3) - If you do college math clep you get 6 credits so you're covered. Or you could do two ALEKS courses.
Must include at least two subject areas
E. General Education Electives 9 - Again look at the link. TONS of options. It just depends on what you like.
II. Free Electives 12 - TESC accepts 25 FEMA credits, so you can do those.
Total: 60

If you were interested in going all the way and doing a BA in Liberal Arts, you would have to add:
3 more Natural Science or Math credits - You could do College Math for the credits above and do an ALEKS course here or you could do Natural Science CLEP. Natural Science CLEP is 6 credits, so the remaining 3 would fall in General Education. So again it depends on if you are a math or science person. I lean toward math, so I did the first option.
9 more General Education - Again tons of options.
15 more free electives - I would do 24 FEMAS and then just pick a 3 credit test that interests you.
And then 33 in your area of study with two concentrations. The choice is yours but I think I would do the following:

Social Science: (I include 36 credits here. 24 for area of study plus the 12 you need for general ed.)
Introductory Psychology - 3 credits CLEP
Human Growth and Development - 3 credits CLEP
Introduction to Educational Psychology - 3 credits CLEP
Introductory Sociology - 3 credits CLEP
Social Sciences and History - 6 credits CLEP
Macroeconomics - 3 credits CLEP
Microeconomics - 3 credits CLEP
US History 1 - 3 credits CLEP
US History 2 - 3 credits CLEP
Organizational Behavior - 3 credits DSST
Substabce Abuse - 3 credits DSST

Humanities (12 for general ed. and 9 for area of study) (Also, this is assuming you don't know Spanish or French. If you do you could get 12 credits from that)
Humanities - 6 credits CLEP
Analyzing and Interpreting Literature - 6 credits CLEP
Technical Writing - 3 credits DSST
Intro to World Religions - 3 credits DSST
Ethics in America - 3 credits DSST

You can search "Liberal Arts degree TESC" and see what other people did and get some ideas.

[rmroberts]

Also, I forgot to mention you have ECEs as an option. They have quite a few tests that would fall under the social sciences category. ECEs are more expensive and tend to be a bit harder though. You can look at what they have here.

There are also a few TECEPs that might work for you. But again they are more expensive. I'm not sure of difficulty level though. I haven't taken one. They are listed on the page I linked in previous reply.

[akbasak26]

Hey there! Just wanted to let you know I go to Liberty and they except quite a few CLEPs and DSST. They have a list of specifically which CLEPs and DSSTs apply to which courses they offer. If you go to their website and click on the CASAS page, there is a link for information about Cleps. I've found it really useful! To figure out which DSSTs they accept I have to actually do a search on the site "DSST" to find the list. (I can never find a specific link about it) I have had a fantastic experience at liberty! I blog about it on elearners.com if you are more interested in my experience! Best wishes to you!