CLEP vs AP

[dcan]

So many people have never heard of CLEP. It's really sad when you realize how many people can get a perfectly good diploma for $10K or less but instead go $100K in debt for something the same or even less relevant than a Big 3 degree. When I was in HS I took AP European History and AP Chem II, but sadly took no tests (doh!). We all knew about AP because that is what was told to us by the administrators. Nobody ever mentioned CLEPs at all. A lot of people who do hear about CLEPs think of them as "cheating" somehow, i.e. you are taking a test without taking the class. That's unfortunate because they are missing out on a lot.

I mentioned elsewhere that, from what I've read around here, "testing out" is almost unheard of even among students at the Big 3. Most of them are transfers from other schools who just want to finish a degree with flexibility, but they still take a lot of courses. I check the peer forums in Blackboard at TESC from time to time and there are a lot of people taking classes there. Often when you are able to explain testing out to someone they first look at you like you are speaking a foreign language, then they look at you as if you are some kind of super-genius. They just sell themselves short.

The people here are the rarest of the rare, the weirdest of the weird. Wear that badge with pride.