CLEP v. Dual Enrollment

I'm sorry to all of you who keep checking back to see if I have posted more on the CLEP issue. I do have a few more thoughts, some further information and some resources to recommend.

First, I want to say that I think CLEP is superior to Dual enrollment in several ways. Let me explain. First, dual enrollment requires your child to go to a college campus when they are in high school and take a class for both high school and college credit.

Benefit
your child gets college credit in high school.

Costs
The first draw back is that your child must travel to and from this college class several times a week. Your child wastes an entire semester earning a credit he could have procured in ten weeks of study for the CLEP. Further, your child is graded against kids who are older - some much older - on a curve. Even worse, that grade along with the credit are transferred to the university. So your child is earning a GPA before they are academically and mentally ready. This is not a good beginning for college. Their dreams are easily crushed at this point. You see, your child is competing academically against older kids and sometimes even adults. With a CLEP test, your child gets three to eight hours (depending on the course) credit in only a couple of hours away from home. They know before they go whether they are prepared academically to pass. The test is not competitive, it is designed to let a university know that you child has college level knowlege in that course - enough to grant that child credit for the course. Even better, you know instantaneously whether you passed the course when you turn in your test. The computer scores it when you turn it in. You leave knowing your fate.

Also, with Dual Enrollment, you have to pay for specific, often very expensive, text books. Sometimes you even have to pay for the actual college class if you are a homeschooler. For the price of the texts you will need alone, your child can get all the resources they need to study for the CLEP test and pay for the exam. All of these resources can be borrowed from the library, thus making the cost of college credit equal to about $60 plus the price of gas that it took you to get there. Big difference!

As well, the credit from the junior college may not even transfer to the University to which your child wants to ultimately go. Many community college courses are not transferrable. A lot of work for nothing. With CLEP, you can check which colleges accept the CLEP credits you have and apply there! If you have a college in mind, you can take only the CLEPS they accept. Even better, you can procure your entire degree through CLEP and DANTES credits and never step foot on campus.

Even further problems with Dual Enrollment are that your child is no longer homeschooling, but actually going away to college. The anti-Christian "free thinkers" of the university are now sitting next to your kid. Who knows what they did last night or where they live. The professor over your child is suddenly the authority and can be very influential, and you don't even know what kinds of ideas they will espouse. Frankly, I still ponder some of the things my English professor said to the class in college (thoroughly mocking Jonathan Edwards, and requiring us to read a book called The Selfish Gene which taugh evolution - IN ENGLISH CLASS!) With CLEP, your child is still homeschooling. They study for the college course at home, you take them and in one day, they have instant college credit.

A child doing a Dual Enrollment program takes two years to get an associates degree, taking many classes, being away from home every day all day, driving back and forth, separating from his family. A child utilizing CLEP and other Credits by Exams can earn their entire Baccalareate degree in two years. Again, my only caution is that if your child plans to move on to a higher degree - they should take a few college courses on campus just before they graduate in order to get over the adjustment period before they enter graduate studies.

CLEPs bank for twenty years. That means that if your fifteen year old took enough CLEPs to be a junior in college, then decided to run a business or do mission work for twenty years before returning to earn their degree, the CLEP credits are still valid!

College Board, the makers of the SAT have created the CLEP tests. To learn more about CLEP, go to http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/clep/about.html

If you want to know which CLEP courses your chosen university accepts, go to their website and enter CLEP in the search terms.

The best study guides for studying for a CLEP test are the Rea's study guides. In fact, I've found them so useful, I think they could be used to teach the course to high schoolers even if you weren't studying for CLEP. The reviews on Amazon confirm that if you do well on their practice exams, you will ace the test. You actualy KNOW whether you will pass the CLEP test by taking the practice exams.

I have found this wonderful homeschool yahoo group that I highly recommend. The moderator has actually created free lesson plans using the Rea's books as well as other resources to prepare for a CLEP test in about ten to twelve weeks. You could do it faster, or slower. Some of the people on the board have had their middle school child taking and doing well on the CLEPs. One person's 11 year old passed the German CLEP!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClepForHomeschool/You must introduce yourself before you can post an unmoderated message.