Tests and options
Sometimes you just luck out.
Making plans to go off to college, I learned about something called the CLEP test, from the people who bring you the SAT's. Those initials stand for College Level Examination Program, and the idea is to get credit by examination for what you already know. The University of Utah accepted and gave credit for scores on that test, so it seemed a great idea. My high school had an honors track, but it was not a formal AP program or anything else that would be instantly recognized outside of the school district--no automatic credits there. So I signed up to take the test(s).
Where I lucked out was that I signed up to take the test at a local university in August, before I left home. The other choice was to take it in Salt Lake in October. It turns out that the university gave credit for certain minimum scores, but deducted the credit hours you had completed or were enrolled in before the test date, making the logical assumption that your coursework went into the knowledge demonstrated in those scores. No problem with that in principle, but in this case, that would have been three whole weeks, and would have subtracted all the credit hours for each subject in which I was enrolled that first quarter; it would have been a pretty big hit. Since I took the test before I ever set foot in a college class, I received full credit (45 quarter hours), the equivalent of one year of general education requirements.
Do a little happy dance! I didn't have to fill requirements except for my major--I could take the classes that interested me most. The university reevaluated their protocols for CLEP the following spring, changing from a win-everything score to a three-tiered scoring system (being on quarters rather than semesters, that was logical, this score got one quarter's worth of credit, this score two, etc.) but I was easily above those. To say that I was not impressed with the rigor of the test would be a fair assessment; for example, I got a score of 730 out of 800 in biology. Granted, high school biology was taught by one of my favorite teachers, and the textbook was indeed the same one used for Biology 101, and I did read myself the chapters we skipped, but still, it had been my sophomore year, and the test was not a challenge. I think it should have been.
But that was okay, I didn't have to take any of the huge-auditorium survey classes! Except by choice in the case of Music 101, which I actually signed up for as Honors Music 101 and arrived to find that it made no difference, we were all in one huge group together. I was actually required to buy a season ticket to the Symphony-- happy to do it, and student season tickets for the balcony at the Tabernacle were cheap, cheap, cheap. I had no intention of selling the remainder of the season off to next term's students!
So I was able to dive right in to upper division classes my second quarter. I was planning on an English major, French minor, with a teaching certificate. It didn't quite work out that way, though the first point held, for a couple of reasons.
It would turn out to be very useful that I could finish school early. Why? Stay tuned....
Making plans to go off to college, I learned about something called the CLEP test, from the people who bring you the SAT's. Those initials stand for College Level Examination Program, and the idea is to get credit by examination for what you already know. The University of Utah accepted and gave credit for scores on that test, so it seemed a great idea. My high school had an honors track, but it was not a formal AP program or anything else that would be instantly recognized outside of the school district--no automatic credits there. So I signed up to take the test(s).
Where I lucked out was that I signed up to take the test at a local university in August, before I left home. The other choice was to take it in Salt Lake in October. It turns out that the university gave credit for certain minimum scores, but deducted the credit hours you had completed or were enrolled in before the test date, making the logical assumption that your coursework went into the knowledge demonstrated in those scores. No problem with that in principle, but in this case, that would have been three whole weeks, and would have subtracted all the credit hours for each subject in which I was enrolled that first quarter; it would have been a pretty big hit. Since I took the test before I ever set foot in a college class, I received full credit (45 quarter hours), the equivalent of one year of general education requirements.
Do a little happy dance! I didn't have to fill requirements except for my major--I could take the classes that interested me most. The university reevaluated their protocols for CLEP the following spring, changing from a win-everything score to a three-tiered scoring system (being on quarters rather than semesters, that was logical, this score got one quarter's worth of credit, this score two, etc.) but I was easily above those. To say that I was not impressed with the rigor of the test would be a fair assessment; for example, I got a score of 730 out of 800 in biology. Granted, high school biology was taught by one of my favorite teachers, and the textbook was indeed the same one used for Biology 101, and I did read myself the chapters we skipped, but still, it had been my sophomore year, and the test was not a challenge. I think it should have been.
But that was okay, I didn't have to take any of the huge-auditorium survey classes! Except by choice in the case of Music 101, which I actually signed up for as Honors Music 101 and arrived to find that it made no difference, we were all in one huge group together. I was actually required to buy a season ticket to the Symphony-- happy to do it, and student season tickets for the balcony at the Tabernacle were cheap, cheap, cheap. I had no intention of selling the remainder of the season off to next term's students!
So I was able to dive right in to upper division classes my second quarter. I was planning on an English major, French minor, with a teaching certificate. It didn't quite work out that way, though the first point held, for a couple of reasons.
It would turn out to be very useful that I could finish school early. Why? Stay tuned....
It's refreshing to learn of someone who could be critical of too easy a test. Yes, I will stayed tuned.
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