CLEP COURSES FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
Determining grades for the coursework used to prep for CLEP exams requires out-of-the-box thinking. First, there are no official CLEP courses that provide the grades that high school students need on their transcripts. Mostly, students study a variety of resources to prepare for a CLEP exam. The online CLEP preparation websites like Modern States offer courses with no gradable material. Aside from the grading issue, these courses don’t seem to offer enough support for high school students who are taking the subject for the first time. Online CLEP prep courses seem to fit college students better – students who have already taken a course in the study area and are looking for review.
A parent can’t rely on the score her student receives on a CLEP exam either. CLEP exams are pass/fail and the actual numerical scores don’t provide insight into letter grades. Read CLEP Exam Scoring.
DIY CLEP COURSES
Rather than rely on the online single-source CLEP preparation courses, I structure my own CLEP “courses” from multiple resources using high school curricula, college textbooks, flashcards, and study guides. These resources provide opportunities to develop graded material and document progress. Using a broad selection of materials improves the odds of passing a CLEP exam too. It also improves the odds that your student will have a quality educational experience rather than a shallow, disappointing experience – in other words, a flop of a year that can’t be conveniently redone.
For a general overview of the materials I use read CLEP Study Materials.
HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL COURSE + CLEP EXAM
Taking an actual high school level course through an outside instructor and adding various CLEP prep materials is one way to add graded material. We did this for the Analyzing and Interpreting Literature CLEP. The teacher assigned a grade for the course, and I assigned an “A” for passing the CLEP exam. The two grades were combined for an honors English credit on the high school transcript. This method worked for several of the exams.
Taking a high school course at home with a homeschool curriculum is another way to arrive at a letter grade. For example, one of my daughters used a high school level US History curriculum. It provided tests, quizzes, and projects. Then she studied extra material at the end of the year to prepare for the CLEP exam. The chapter tests in this curriculum provided grades to support the grade I assigned for passing the CLEP exam.
For ideas on how to include CLEP credits on the high school transcript read: CLEP Credits on the High School Transcript.
CREATE YOUR OWN TESTS
College level textbooks became my go-to resource for many CLEP exams. The teachers’ guides for these books are expensive, so I ended up writing my own tests. It was a fairly quick and easy project as I was already reading through the chapters and study guides to make Quizlet flashcards. Each week my students were assigned reading and flashcards. I quizzed them orally each week on the flashcards.
In the beginning, I created weekly tests by simply copying and pasting the Quizlet cards into a Word document and had my students fill in the blanks. That alone produced 32 tests. With more experience, I added fill-in-the-blank, matching, short answer, and multiple-choice questions. Sure, I wrote plenty of ineffective questions at first, but I did improve.
The tests served as motivation for learning and productive review. My students appreciated the check points that the tests provided. One of my friends saluted the graded material because she lives with homeschool skeptics.
WHAT IF MY CHILD DOES NOT PASS A CLEP EXAM
We experienced failing scores on CLEP exams a couple of times. And it was usually by one point. If your student worked hard memorizing facts and completing the work that was assigned, the score on a CLEP exam does not need to impact the letter grade negatively. If your student worked hard and did well on chapter tests and quizzes, the grade should reflect that. Students can retake a CLEP exam after 90 days too. One of daughter’s retook a CLEP exam and scored in the high 60’s the second time around which was one of her highest scores.
Read about grading subjectivity in my post Homeschool Grades: Dealing with Their Subjectivity.
IN CONCLUSION
If you want to add CLEP exams to your student’s high school experience, there are ways to support the preparation with graded materials. Courses taught by outside teachers or homeschool curricula studied at home are sources of grades. College level materials can then supplement these. You can also build a do-it-yourself CLEP curriculum with college textbooks, custom flashcards, and tests. As homeschoolers, we also have the freedom to assign an “A” for a passed CLEP exam without graded material. No matter how you get your student to pass a CLEP exam in high school, your student deserves an “A.” And even if they don’t pass, hard work deserves its due credit. That’s how it works at my private homeschool.
To learn how to convert CLEP credit into high school credit read: Transcripts: Calculating Course Credits
To learn how to use CLEP credits on the high school transcript read: CLEP Credits on the High School Transcript.
My experience with CLEPs. I have coached my kids and their friends through 16 different CLEP exams over a period of 9 years. Collectively, they have passed 39 CLEP exams and earned over 159 college credits. I’m still coaching my younger son through his CLEP journey. My high school graduates have received full-ride merit scholarships.