What are CLEP Exams and Why Should I Take Them?

Key Infor­ma­tion:

• CLEP exams offer a cost-effec­tive and time-sav­ing way to earn col­lege cred­its. Each exam costs $93, sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than the aver­age col­lege course, and can save stu­dents up to three months com­pared to tra­di­tion­al class durations.
• CLEP exams are wide­ly acces­si­ble, with more than 2,000 test cen­ters world­wide and an option for remote proc­tor­ing. Exams are avail­able year-round, pro­vid­ing flex­i­bil­i­ty for stu­dents to take them at their convenience.
• CLEP exams cov­er a vari­ety of sub­jects, includ­ing his­to­ry, social sci­ences, lit­er­a­ture, sci­ence, math­e­mat­ics, busi­ness, and world lan­guages.
• Near­ly 3,000 col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties accept CLEP exam cred­its. The exams are open to any­one, includ­ing high school stu­dents, cur­rent col­lege stu­dents, and adult learn­ers, mak­ing them a ver­sa­tile option for advanc­ing edu­ca­tion­al goals.

CLEP — the Col­lege Lev­el Exam­i­na­tion Pro­gram — is an ide­al way to save mon­ey on col­lege. Rather than tak­ing a full course, you take an exam instead. If you earn a high enough score, you can earn col­lege cred­it. It’s as sim­ple as that!

Giv­en this easy (and afford­able) for­mat, it’s no sur­prise that CLEP exams are a pop­u­lar way for stu­dents like you to earn col­lege cred­it quick­ly, start on a degree soon­er, and test out of intro­duc­to­ry sub­jects. The ben­e­fits don’t stop there, though. 

Let’s take a clos­er look at CLEP and dis­cov­er how to enroll, how to study, and more.

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Understanding CLEP Exams

Accord­ing to the Col­lege Board, the orga­ni­za­tion that admin­is­ters CLEP exams, stu­dents have earned col­lege cred­its via CLEP since the ear­ly 1970s. As not­ed above, the premise is sim­ple: you reg­is­ter for a test on a spe­cif­ic sub­ject, study, take the test, and if you score high enough, you can earn col­lege cred­it. Present­ly near­ly 3,000 col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties have CLEP cred­it accep­tance programs.

Exams can be tak­en at more than 2,000 CLEP test cen­ters world­wide. Alter­na­tive­ly, you can take CLEP exams at home with remote proc­tor­ing. In either case, you can take exams year-round. This com­bi­na­tion of flex­i­ble test dates and test loca­tions makes CLEP exams extreme­ly accessible.

CLEP sub­jects abound, too. For exam­ple, you can reg­is­ter for CLEP exams in any of the fol­low­ing subjects:

*This is just a sam­pling. Many oth­er exams are available.

Benefits of Taking CLEP Exams

One of the pri­ma­ry ben­e­fits of tak­ing CLEP exams is the flex­i­bil­i­ty in edu­ca­tion they pro­vide. It’s a path­way for you to earn cred­it for things you already know, and move more quick­ly through a col­lege cur­ricu­lum so you can begin advanced stud­ies faster and grad­u­ate sooner.

The CLEP exam ben­e­fits don’t end there, though. These exams also offer the following:

• Cost-effec­tive­ness — CLEP exams are present­ly $93. Even with test cen­ter or remote proc­tor­ing fees, each test is still sig­nif­i­cant­ly cheap­er than tak­ing the equiv­a­lent col­lege class. Accord­ing to the Edu­ca­tion Data Ini­tia­tive, the aver­age class costs near­ly $1,200 for in-state stu­dents at pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties. The cost is even high­er for out-of-state and pri­vate school students. 
• Time sav­ings — Each CLEP exam is 90–120 min­utes. Assum­ing you study each week for a month pri­or to the exam, you’ll still spend about three months less prepar­ing for and tak­ing the exam than the time you’d have to invest in the equiv­a­lent col­lege course.
• Broad accep­tance — As men­tioned ear­li­er, near­ly 3,000 col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties accept CLEP exam scores for credit.
• Aca­d­e­m­ic flex­i­bil­i­ty — Test­ing out of cer­tain class­es via CLEP exams frees up your col­lege sched­ule to take oth­er cours­es (or reduce your course load if you work while you’re in school). Not only that, but since CLEP exams are offered year-round and can be com­plet­ed at home, you can enjoy the flex­i­bil­i­ty of tak­ing the tests when it works for your schedule.

Eligibility and Preparation

Yet anoth­er ben­e­fit of these exams is that CLEP eli­gi­bil­i­ty is open to any­one. Whether you’re a high school stu­dent, a cur­rent col­lege stu­dent, an adult learn­er return­ing to col­lege, or some­thing in between, CLEP exams offer you a path­way for­ward to com­plete your education.

To reg­is­ter for CLEP exams is a sim­ple process, too:

• Select an exam on the Col­lege Board CLEP website.
• Add the exam to your shop­ping cart.
• Sign in to your CLEP account or cre­ate a new one.
• Pro­vide your per­son­al infor­ma­tion and ver­i­fy that it’s correct.
• Select the test cen­ter where you’d like to take the test (or choose the at-home option with remote proctoring).
• Choose where your test scores should be sent.
• Review your order and pay for the exam.
• Sched­ule your CLEP exam.

As easy as the reg­is­tra­tion process is, this is still a col­lege-lev­el test that eval­u­ates your under­stand­ing of a broad range of top­ics in a giv­en field. That means you’ll need to pre­pare — and pre­pare well — to take the test.

Typ­i­cal test-tak­ing strate­gies work as CLEP study tips: study ear­ly and often, avoid cram­ming at the last minute, and famil­iar­ize your­self with the types of ques­tions you might encounter on the exam. But there are spe­cif­ic CLEP prepa­ra­tion resources, too.

For exam­ple, the Col­lege Board offers sam­ple ques­tions, exam guides, and oth­er exam-spe­cif­ic study resources. While many of these mate­ri­als come at an added cost, it is worth it for most test-tak­ers to invest in study mate­ri­als to improve the like­li­hood of earn­ing a sat­is­fac­to­ry score.

Oth­er resources you can use to get ready for a CLEP exam include the following:

• CLEP Prac­tice App for your smartphone
• Online resources from CLEP-approved sources
• Third-par­ty study aids (though the Col­lege Board warns that some of these com­pa­nies aren’t on the up-and-up)

The Col­lege Board also offers a test plat­form tuto­r­i­al that gives you a tour of essen­tial test fea­tures so you have some famil­iar­i­ty with the exam for­mat before test day. 

Relat­ed:

• Five Ways to Get a Faster Bachelor’s Degree
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• High Accep­tance Rate Col­leges for Spe­cif­ic Majors

Recognizing Credits and Acceptance

How col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties rec­og­nize CLEP exam cred­its is up to each insti­tu­tion. Some schools don’t accept CLEP exams for cred­it at all. Those that do might award dif­fer­ent amounts of cred­it or require dif­fer­ent scores to earn cred­it, for that matter.

A good course of action is to use the Col­lege Board’s cred­it pol­i­cy search tool to learn about the pol­i­cy at your school or prospec­tive schools. You can search by the school’s name, or, alter­na­tive­ly, by the spe­cif­ic exam. Bet­ter still, con­sid­er talk­ing direct­ly to your admis­sions coun­selor or aca­d­e­m­ic advi­sor to get spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion about your school’s policy.

Below are a few exam­ples of school poli­cies regard­ing CLEP exam credit:

Strategic Approach to Taking CLEP Exams

Many stu­dents like you have become CLEP suc­cess sto­ries. They’ve passed numer­ous tests, earned cred­it for many dif­fer­ent class­es, and done so at a min­i­mum of cost and time. You can do the same if you take a strate­gic approach to earn­ing cred­it through CLEP:

• Reflect on your aca­d­e­m­ic and career goals. Doing so informs you of the tests you need or should take to make your goals a reality.
• Exam­ine the gen­er­al course­work required for your degree. Many CLEP exams cov­er gen­er­al edu­ca­tion require­ments in math, sci­ence, Eng­lish, and so forth that might not be direct­ly relat­ed to your field of study. Using exams to test out of these broad, intro­duc­to­ry class­es can free up time in your sched­ule to focus on advanced cours­es with­in your major.
• Com­bine CLEP tests with oth­er cred­it-earn­ing approach­es. You can accel­er­ate col­lege degree com­ple­tion even more by tak­ing Advanced Place­ment (AP), Inter­na­tion­al Bac­calau­re­ate (IB), and dual-cred­it class­es while you’re in high school.

DSST exams are worth con­sid­er­a­tion, too. Like CLEP, DSST is open to any­one to earn cred­it by exam­i­na­tion. DSST offers more than 30 exams, which are accept­ed at over 2,000 col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties for credit.

Conclusion

One of the scari­est aspects of get­ting a col­lege edu­ca­tion is the cost. Yet, by using CLEP exams, you can off­set a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of tuition-relat­ed expens­es. Com­bined with the avail­abil­i­ty of tests in core areas, the flex­i­bil­i­ty of test­ing dates, and the abil­i­ty to get ahead with your col­lege stud­ies, CLEP exams are tru­ly advan­ta­geous for stu­dents like you.

If you’re inter­est­ed in earn­ing cred­it via CLEP exams, con­sult with your coun­selor or aca­d­e­m­ic advi­sor to get the process start­ed. The ear­li­er you begin tak­ing and pass­ing these exams, the more cred­it you can earn before grad­u­at­ing from high school and the less mon­ey you’ll have to pay for your degree.