My First week as Advisor, need your help!

[perriquit]

Today was my 7th day as academic advisor for XXX college. It is going to be challening but very promising.

The majority of my students are military. I was surprised with the accommodations offered to military learners that allows them to transfer a ton of elective credit. The school takes only 64 credits from ACE and Community Colleges combined and 30 Credits by Examination (CLEP, Dantes, ECE, TECEP). There is no mention of upper level or lower level, however the students are required to take 60 credits from a 4 year institution (CLEP and DDST counts as 4 year credit) 30 of which need to be from our school. So technically you can SL and CLEP up to 94 credit hours, leaving you with 30 credits to complete in residence.

I was very happy to learn that we take PF at face value, without ACE, and the credits count as part of the 60 needed from a 4 year institution we just treat PF as any other RA school! that is awesome!

I want to help my learners maximize their transfer credits so they can graduate. Retention is a key issue we need to improve. While most of my military learners know about CLEP and DSST, they don't take full advantage of them and none of the civilians I have talked to so far have ever heard about CLEP/Dantes or ACE. I finished my degree without using testing, I relied heavily on PF and SL so I don't have first hand experience.

I would like to compile a list of tests as long as the recommended study material and I would like your input. I need to start with some gen eds.
- College Algebra
- English Comp (we take Composition w. Essay as Comp I and II)
- Speech
- US History
- Ethics in America

I would really appreciate your feedback on recommended material and study strategies for those tests!

Very respectfully

Perico

[ironheadjack]

As far as study material for each different CLEP & DSST, free-clep-prep has numerous suggested study resources for each exam.

College Composition CLEP Study Guide - Free-Clep-Prep.com

[mymelody]

^^I second Free-Clep-Prep. There are stickies on this forum that provide excellent resources.

Peterson is my favorite. They provide 3 tests for all Clep/Dsst examines. There are also E-books on many subject.

[cookderosa]

Today was my 7th day as academic advisor for XXX college. It is going to be challening but very promising.

The majority of my students are military. I was surprised with the accommodations offered to military learners that allows them to transfer a ton of elective credit. The school takes only 64 credits from ACE and Community Colleges combined and 30 Credits by Examination (CLEP, Dantes, ECE, TECEP). There is no mention of upper level or lower level, however the students are required to take 60 credits from a 4 year institution (CLEP and DDST counts as 4 year credit) 30 of which need to be from our school. So technically you can SL and CLEP up to 94 credit hours, leaving you with 30 credits to complete in residence.

I was very happy to learn that we take PF at face value, without ACE, and the credits count as part of the 60 needed from a 4 year institution we just treat PF as any other RA school! that is awesome!

I want to help my learners maximize their transfer credits so they can graduate. Retention is a key issue we need to improve. While most of my military learners know about CLEP and DSST, they don't take full advantage of them and none of the civilians I have talked to so far have ever heard about CLEP/Dantes or ACE. I finished my degree without using testing, I relied heavily on PF and SL so I don't have first hand experience.

I would like to compile a list of tests as long as the recommended study material and I would like your input. I need to start with some gen eds.
- College Algebra
- English Comp (we take Composition w. Essay as Comp I and II)
- Speech
- US History
- Ethics in America

I would really appreciate your feedback on recommended material and study strategies for those tests!

Very respectfully

Perico

IC Of course!! Seriously, we have an amazing pass rate here. it would be my first suggestion. Second for me is the REA book series. They don't offer online study, but they offer CDs as an option. Options 1 and 2 are for the highly motivated. For the slightly less diligent, I'd have them complete one of the courses at Saylor.org. I've been using these this year in my family as well as in my virtual online study group- they are really good and have an interesting mix of multi-media learning. (free)

[sierraecho]

anyway you can state the school? I'm active duty and have taken 31 exams and passed all 31. Wondering where I can maximize my potential...

[KayV]

Which exams do you already have completed, Sierraecho? 31 taken and passed should put you pretty close to a degree. I see your first 13 in your signature line, but what are the others?

[ShotoJuku]

...Today was my 7th day as academic advisor for XXX college...

[COLOR="#000080"]
Triple-X (XXX) College - how do I enroll??!![/COLOR] :reddevil:
[COLOR="#FF0000"]
(Sorry - I couldn't resist!)[/COLOR]

[Sterling Archer]

Sounds like Thomas Edison State College. They accepted my 114 credits combined community college/clep/dsst/fema

[EI2HCB]

Perriquit,
You'll find the answers for each exam through the exam specific resources through instantcert (Link below) It takes a bit of research on each exam probably took me about 2 hours research for U.S History 1 it costs 14.95 for the first month so you should be able to do all those Gen eds in a month of research. I'm currently working on U.S History II at the moment although very slowly I'm in two classes at Excelsior while working two other jobs. you can always refer your prospective students here to the forum. I've talked to tons of students who've never heard of testing out, or even worse seem to think that it isn't really an achievement worth going after. I have put some stuff up on my blog regarding U.S History 1 but haven't had time in many months to get round to updating what I've done to pass the exam.

[clep3705]

As an advisor, you should know that there isn't one answer for everybody. Different people need different answers.

The InstantCert flashcards are the right answer for some. They are not right for others. Different people, different learning styles, different needs.

Even with the same person, the right answer may change depending on the circumstances. Does the person just need to pass? Or does the person need to make a high score to get a good letter grade? Does the person need a solid foundation in the subject or is it just to fulfill a distribution requirement? Is the person interested in the subject?

A popular alternative to InstantCert is the REA series of CLEP preparation books. They greatly vary in quality tending to be better in the social sciences.

Khan Academy, YouTube, and iTunes are good for those who need audio or audiovisual learning.