I’m in the US and I’m going back to college after 15 years in the work force. I’d like to try to test out of some basic classes I have a lot of experience in, but no college credits. How does this work? Who runs this program, an accredited testing board or individual colleges? If you test out of a class, would that count as 3 (or equivalent) credit hours of college credit for other purposes such as professional licensure? Are there issues with acceptance by colleges of these types of tests? Thanks!
Talk to the advisors at the college.
Why go to college if you aren’t going to take the classes?
CLEP exams let you test out of basic courses and get the course credits without taking the class. I did three classes that way a few years ago. I’d still recommend studying since the tests cover specific material. They’re not general knowledge/life experience exams, but you can study at your own pace and test out when you’re ready. clep.collegeboard.org
I suggest you look at WGU. Fully online and is competency based. That means that you can just pass any class without doing homework and such—just do whatever the required tasks are to complete the course and you’re done and with credit.
I did this. I’m starting in my final semester this fall, after going back for my degree at 38 and 8 years experience in my field. For my field, “testing out” wasn’t an actual test, it was displaying to the professor that I could show that I had done work very similar to the curriculum for that class and could speak the jargon of my field. They only let me out of a couple requirements though, and only made it so that I didn’t have to take those classes, no credit was given to me. Mostly, my experience has led to me having a serious foot up in a lot of my classes and being able to act as an unofficial TA in some of the hands on classes. And for the classes I really should have been allowed to test out of, I still generally learned enough new material to consider it worth my time and money.
