In my very first post in this forum back on February 4th of this year, I had about 22 old community college credits and I was trying to obtain an AAS from Excelsior. Four months later I have a total of about 86 credits and am only a few credits shy of becoming a senior in college. I averaged 16 credits per month over the last four months. It's no BA in 4 weeks--but I was moving at a pretty good clip. Also in my first post, I asked if there was anyone who had any advice re. credit by exam from community colleges. Turns out, no one did--but our fearless leader, Steve, replied saying that it sounded like an interesting approach and asked me to follow up with the results. Well, I spent the last three days testing out of five (5) classes for a total of twelve (12) credits. You can check my signature for details--but suffice to say that I'm a life-long musician and they were all music classes. Rather than make an impossibly long post (as I'm want to do) I'll just highlight the aspects of this experience that I think are either interesting or helpful.

-Work with your counselor and fill out all the paperwork first. Everyone at my college seemed inclined to help--BUT NO ONE ASKS THEM FOR CREDIT BY EXAM so they often didn't know what to do. So, if my experience is typical, you may be breaking new ground and leading the way.

-Ask nicely and explain your goal. One of the teachers said he agreed to let me test out of two of his classes primarily because of my email describing my goals.

-Be prepared for some resentment. A couple of the teachers appeared to resent the concept that their class was so easy/unimportant/inconsequential that I thought I could just take a test and should get full credit. Again, explaining your goal helps here.

-I had to fill out a form for each class. Each form required approval by the dean of the arts, the department head, the instructor, the admissions office and the counseling office. I should've received at least a couple of credits for advanced signature gathering.

-One teacher initially told me he couldn't help because he was only part-time and was only compensated for his regular classes and nothing beyond. I told him that I would like him to reconsider and that I would compensate him if that would help. Now, this was via email and the department head was copied on both emails. The teacher then replied to me only--saying that he would do it but I would have to buy a CD for the class for $15. Well, I showed up and he gave me the Guitar Studies I final exam for a total of less than five minutes. Then, he got up and got his CD OF HIM PLAYING HIS GUITAR--SOFT JAZZ and shamelessly charged me $15 for it. I considered running it over in the parking lot--but my mom always said that two wrongs don't make a right.

-I ended up doing it when everyone was taking finals, which was helpful, but I did have to take two full days off of work to do it.

To give you an idea of what this functionally entailed, here's a class by class description:

Society and Rock & Roll
The teacher made me take the final which was five (5) essay questions in one hour. My hand was killing me when I was done. He also made me take the mid-term which was ten (10) essay questions in a little over an hour. He told me the book they used in the class and I quickly reviewed it before the exam.

Fundamentals of Music
I took a one and a half page final which took about twenty minutes. Then the teacher, who spoke little English, started suggesting that she couldn't give me an A in the class--despite receiving a 96 on the final, because I hadn't completed classwork. I explained the concept of credit by exam to her and then she decided that if I composed an eight bar song, she could do it. So I sat there for another twenty minutes and composed an eight bar song (a hit I'm sure!) and she gave me an A for the course.

Guitar Studies I and II
Guitar Studies I was the teacher that made me buy his CD. Final exam consisted of some note sight-reading and some chords. Took about five minutes......and $15. Got an A for my money anyway. Guitar Studies II I took the final which consisted mostly of building guitar chords on paper and....no playing. Got 100% on the test and an A for the course.

Bass Guitar Studies I
This guy was tough. He made me play bass to Autumn Leaves in a variety of styles and wanted me to play the altered tones and everything. THEN, he had me read a pretty tough bass chart. I'm a guitar player so I have to transpose in my head when playing bass. I don't know what grade he gave me but I know I passed.

My school charged an extra $9 per credit for this--so the tests were $29 per credit instead of $20. Still ended up costing almost exactly what the CLEP tests cost per exam. My advice for anyone that wants to try this is to closely follow the instructions on the form and the advice of the counseling office. Be polite and grateful. Know that there are people in the process that likely have never done this before. Don't take no for an answer. Politely state your case and be persistent.

These 12 credits qualify as Humanities towards my BGB degree. If anyone has any questions regarding the process, please feel free to reply and I'll do my best to answer.

Hi,
This is my first post and I really enjoy this forum. I just enrolled at Excelsior a week ago and I am very close to graduating (I think I have around 108 hours or so maybe 111) and I want to sign up for the Social Science and History clep. I am a liberal arts major with Excelsior. I just want to make sure I'll receive credit for passing the exam before I sign up. I can wait a few weeks to get an offical answer from EC, but I'm very eager to finish by July. Also, will I receive 6 hours from EC?
I've taken intro to psych clep, western civ 2 clep and I took intro to sociology and american history 1 and 2 at a brick and mortar school. I just want to see if anyone knows if EC will say I am duplicating classes?

Thanks so much!!

it is a little more complicated than it sounds...

Last November (2006) I CLEP'd Principles of Microeconomics and scored a 53 which equated to a "C" at Excelsior College. Since I took the CLEP before Jan. 1, 2007, I was given a C rather than a "Pass". The rules have changed regarding the way CLEPs are recorded. Now all CLEPs are Pass/Fail.

I spoke with my advisor today and she said that I could take it again just to get a "Pass"... but ... Wouldn't that be a duplication of credits??? I would take an extra CLEP to bump it off my transcripts, but Microeconomics is required... so, now what?

This may seem quite petty, but I would sure like to be Summa Cum Laude. I have kept my GPA up for a long time just to lose it because I took the CLEP in 2006 rather than 2007. I have 105 credits toward a BS in Business.

It is not life or death, but it is important to me nonetheless -- justified or not.

I would appreciate any advice that you may have.

Do you think that I would stand a chance if I petitioned an appeal? :confused:

What do you all think? How would you go about it?

Okay....let me start off by saying I'm no expert in math......my score of 58 reflects that.

I used IC plus the Complete Idiot's Guide to Statistics. I also viewed about half of Against All Odds statistics videos available online. The link is in the subject specific forum Joanne is putting together. The combination of the three if enough to pass the exam, IMHO.

Anyway, I took the computer based version and it consisted of 101 questions with a two hour limit. The first "question" really wasn't one but was a listing of terms for use on the exam. I never referred to it. For a calculator, I used a Texas Instruments TI-36X Solar. The testing center I used is new to DSST tests and it took me about ten minutes to convince them that I could use a calculator...(what is up with that?). They relented. The calculator was sufficient.....

As has been mentioned elsewhere, the test is primarily conceptual in nature so knowing the definitions and principles of statistics is at least as important as understanding the math. I think the key to scoring in the upper ranges would be having more formulas memorized.

- I never needed to refer to a table and none were provided.
- There were far more questions about Null Hypotheses than I'd expected. I'd bet there were at least a dozen problems and questions on the subject.
- Standard Deviation was big, at least in understanding how it factors into the world of Inferential Stats. I think there were two or three questions where I had to find a standard deviation.
- Study Binomial stuff....lots of that.
- Permutations and combinations...four or five questions.
- Significance levels came up a lot.
- There were more than a couple questions which revolved around standard error.

If I think of anything else I'll post it later.

Bo

I'm new to studying for DSST/Exe exams for credit and came across IC and joined this site. Upon my reviews, I've noticed many people state they use other sources of information to pass their exams with IC (while others just stick with IC only). I like what I see on IC and intend to stay a member and would like to know from other members if the DSST study guides called Pass Your Class on the Finish College Fast website (Finish College Fast - Pass Your Clep Tests - Guaranteed!) are good sources to study with IC materials? I have also seen the Pass Your Class offered on EBay for cheaper than the website listed above. Please let me know soon as I got my first DSST class coming up in mid-June (Management Information Systems). Thanks.

Gary :confused:

Looking for any tips on Freshman Comp

How do I take the petersons test online it was asking me for an activation code.

Mary

I am going to take the CLEP English Composition with the essay in about a week. I feel like I know the material well as far as the multiple choice goes but I am concerned about the essay question. I was searching the forums and a large amount of people were saying that they had no idea when the essay came. Does anyone have some advice for preparing ? What are some of the topics that they will ask? Anything would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

This is probably going to sound like a dumb question to those of you that have taken a bunch of these tests... but please be patient, I'm new :o

I'm taking the intro to soc clep tomorrow, and I've taken the Peterson's practice test. But, what score do I need to pass. I keep seeing things talking about some scaled scores between 20 and 80 and I think I need a 50 to pass. How do I figure out this score?? For example, if I answered 70 questions right in the Peterson's practice test, does that mean it was a passing grade.

Does this even make sense???

Help, please

I am planning on taking the College Mathematics CLEP soon. I am also currently deployed in Iraq...so I can't take the computer form of the test. I have been using the Princeton Review "Cracking the CLEP", InstaCert and the 18th edition of the official College Mathematics CLEP study guide. My test control officer just sent me a CLEP study guide to help me out but it is the 17th edition. I skimmed it over real quick and it looks virtually identical.

Does anyone know if anything changed between the versions of the test?

Also I have not been able to get to the peterson's CLEP practice tests because of the stupid firewall here, but I was able to get the free *.pdf study guide from petersons. The questions on their sample practice tests seem a lot harder than any of the other sources I have studied from. It has me kind of worried because I thought I was ready to test.

I ran through the official study guides sample test about 3 weeks ago with 23 out of 50 correct. I know this is low but after brushing up my never used math skills I felt I was leaps and bounds ahead of where I was initially. I am 15+ years removed from High School. I retook the test 2 days ago and got 42 out of 50 right. But I feel this is not a true barometer of my apptitude since I had taken the same test 3 weeks before....bleh.