Teenager Testing Question

[Ruddigore]

Ok, so my 16 yr old son comes to me this morning and informs me he has decided he wants to pursue a BS/BA degree through testing like I did! My heart soared. He is such a bright kid and I think he will do well. He wants to start right away.

Woo hoo! Very, very cool. I wish I started when I was 16. I didn't start until I was 17, and didn't start in earnest until I was 18. Seriously though, that is great news.

Now I have a few questions for those that have kids that have tested. Are there any age minimums or anything special that must be done if they are under 18 and haven't graduated high school?

Not that I know of. Like I said, I took my first test (and joined the forum) when I was 17. I was even able to take advantage of a Minnesota program that gave 6 free CLEP exams to highschool students. Alas, it has since been discontinued -- such a good comeback to the "Oh, but PSEO is free" argument!

Has anyone had any problem getting colleges to accept the credit if it was earned prior to graduating high school?

Nope. Once I managed to extract a transcript from CLEP, Excelsior accepted everything without question. My DSST scores get sent to them automatically.

Has anyone had a HS accept the the CLEP or DSST exams for HS credit, thus getting double credit? He should technically graduate in January, as he only has a couple of required classes left, but it would be nice if he could take some of those via testing over the summer and give him more time for testing and B&M college classes in the fall. I know there are a lot of people out there with this info.

My homeschooling facilitator was in charge of those decisions. (Thanks, Mom!) Sorry that I don't know the answer. We treated it something like PSEO: credit for college and highschool. I don't know how public or private highschools would handle the matter.

Please pass along any advice and suggestions. Does anyone recommend a specific order of testing for high school kids? I thought I would have him start with A&I Lit. He loves to read and it would be a nice jump start of 6 credits to motivate him. I'm just worried about some of the old literary words since they really don't cover much literature here.

He likes to read? Perfect. Make him study literary terms and a Shakespeare sonnet or two before taking some practice exams. He'll be fine.

My advice is to start with things that he enjoys or is good at (not always the same thing: I'm reasonably good at math though I don't particularly care for it). Use some of the potentially easier exams to get into the testing groove -- to figure out what works well for him.

Not to mention the more he gets done now the more flexibility he has in the future for cool classes (I'm starting a Chaucer class! Woo hoo!), crazy grad school stuff (like taking a GRE :eek, or working a job (those $20 proctor fees add up milelol. For example, I wish I had sacrificed the Lower Level Credit PSEO class I took in 2008 in favor of more exams, but that's how it goes. At least I know now I prefer Independent Study courses over the Online Class setup.

Also, I would hold off on the English CLEP until he knows which institution he's channeling his credits into so that he doesn't have six useless credits like I do. (You're amazing, EC, but really...)

Keep us posted on how he's doing, or better yet, tell him to join the forum so that he can tell us! The more the merrier.

Regards,
R.