Does Your Credit-By-Exam Policy Make The Grade For Transfer Students? Institute for the Study of Transfer Students January 24, 2005

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Does Your Credit-By-Exam Policy Make The Grade
For Transfer Students?Institute for the Study
of Transfer Students January 24, 2005
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PRESENTATION AGENDA

1. Most popular credit-by-exams
2. Research findings related to credit-by-exams
3. Credit-by exam (CBE) policy definition and
   importance
4. Exemplary state and institutional CBE policies
5. Personal CBE policy evaluation
6. Available resources
7. Questions and answers

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CREDIT-BY-EXAM

• Advanced Placement
• Over 1.1 million students enrolled in AP courses
• 1.87 million exams
• 14,904 schools participate
• 3,558 colleges accept AP credit
• U.S. History exam most popular

• CLEP
• 190,000 exams
• Administered via computer
• 35 available exams
• 1,300 test centers
• Over 2,900 institutions accept CLEP credit
• Spanish exam most popular

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CBE MYTHS

• Students who take credit-by-exams are not
  adequately prepared for the subsequent course
• Credit-by-exams take students out of my class
• Colleges lose tuition dollars when students take
  credit-by-exams

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RESEARCH SAYS

• Students who earn credit via CLEP/AP are more
  likely to than their peers to complete a
  bachelors degree in four years
• Students who earn credit via CLEP/AP perform as
  well or better in subsequent courses than
  students who completed the introductory course
• Exempted CLEP/AP students have a higher
  cumulative GPA than students who did not take
  CLEP/AP
• Students earning credit by examination tend to
  take more courses overall. They actually take as
  many courses in the subject area as students who
  complete the introductory course.

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AP AND COLLEGE SUCCESS
Students who take AP courses and exams are much
more likely than their peers to complete a
bachelors degree in four years or less. Source
Camara, Wayne. (2003). College Persistence,
Graduation, and Remediation. College Board
Research Notes (RN-19). New York, NY College
Board.
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POOR CBE POLICY

• Frustration
• Confusion
• Reduced Retention Rate
• Delayed Degree Completion
• Repetition of Prerequisite Courses
• Increased Academic Costs
• Abandonment of Potential

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IMPORTANCE OF A CBE POLICY

• Allows students scoring well on exams to place
  out of introductory courses and/or fulfill
  general education requirements
• Helps students move directly to material at their
  level and more quickly identify their academic
  interests
• Eliminates confusion for students transferring
  into a institution and establishes protocol for
  all involved
• Gives students more flexibility in their college
  curriculum, making it possible to pursue honors
  programs, double-majors, internships/co-ops, and
  study-abroad programs
• Provides students with a cost-effective means of
  earning college credit at time when college
  tuition is rising at unprecedented rate

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WHAT IS A CBE POLICY?

• Statements and guidelines outlining the required
  procedure used in the transmission of
  credits-by-exam from outside of an institution.
  It includes
• Accepted forms of credit-by-exam
• Required scores
• Course equivalents/placement
• Acceptance periods/transferability deadlines
• Limitations
• Procedural guidelines
• Established contact/chain-of-command

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CBE POLICY BASICS

• Each college and university determines its own
  policies regarding credit-by-exam, which may
  include granting credit, advanced placement, or
  both
• Granting credit reduces the number of credit
  hours required for graduation
• Awarding advanced placement allows a student to
  place out of the introductory course that is
  comparable to the credit-by-exam and move
  directly into the next, higher-level course
• Frequently, a qualifying grade can also fulfill
  university distribution or departmental
  requirements, such as a composition or a foreign
  language requirement

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WHO DEVELOPS CBE POLICY?

• Faculty
• Registrar
• Dean
• Committees
• System Administrators
• State Legislative Bodies

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CREATING CBE POLICY

• Option 1 Understand What an Exam Grade
  Represents
• Option 2 Use Data on the Performance of AP/CLEP
  Students in College
• Option 3 Base Your Policy on External
  Recommendations
• Option 4 Review Curricula and Exams

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CBE POLICY CHECKLIST

• Which exams does your institution recognize for
  credit?
• For each individual exam, what is the required
  score?
• How much credit is granted for each exam?
• What type of credit is granted for each exam?
• What is the course equivalent for each exam?
• What is the timeframe for accepting this credit?
  
• How many total hours can be earned through
  credit-by-exam?
• How is CLEP/AP credit brought in from another
  institution handled in terms of required
  documentation?
• How often is your policy revisited and revised?
• What office/department is the key contact for
  questions regarding this policy?

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EXEMPTION DECISIONS ARE APPROPRIATE WHEN

• Students as skilled as students completing the
  course are awarded an exemption for that course
• and
• Students less skilled than students completing a
  course are not awarded an exemption for that
  course.

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EXEMPTION DECISIONS ARE INAPPROPRIATE WHEN

• CLEP students are required to enroll in a course
  when their skills are on par with students
  completing that same course successfully
• or
• CLEP students are exempted from courses when
  their skills are inferior to those of students
  completing the course.

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LETS BRAINSTORM

• Good Policy and Bad Policy

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EXEMPLARY POLICIES

• State
• Florida
• Ohio
• Institutional
• Collin County Community College
• University of Arizona

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FLORIDA

• 2001 Legislature mandated establishing passing
  scores and course and credit equivalents for AP,
  IB, AICE, and CLEP
• Public community colleges and universities are
  required to award credit for exams as designated
• Articulation Coordination Committee adopted
  guidelines www.facts.org

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OHIO

• Statewide Articulation Transfer Policy developed
  by Commission on Articulation and Transfer and
  approved by legislature (1998)
• Credit-by-exam provided for within policy
• Transfer Module or common body of knowledge
  required of all institutions established to
  better define application of all credit
• Method of earning credit not required to be
  recorded on transcript if part of Ohio Transfer
  Module

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COLLIN COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE

• Adherence to Texas Higher Education Coordinating
  Board policy
• Utilization of established percentile score in
  credit granting process
• Texas Common Course Numbering System utilized to
  make recognition of credits easier at other state
  institutions

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UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

• Established articulation agreement with community
  colleges
• Policy distributed to CC advisors
• Transfer policy clearly stated

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• What Do You Know About Your Institutions
  Credit-By-Exam Policy?

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Nervewracking?
Terrifying?
Unknown?
Traumatizing?
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CBE POLICY DEVELOPMENT TOOLS

• ACES Study
• Publications
• College Board Staff
• Peer Institutions
• www.collegeboard.com

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AP CREDIT POLICY INFO TOOL

• www.collegeboard.com/ap/creditpolicy
• Searchable by institution
• For each institution that provided their AP
  credit policy information, you can find the
  following
• A link to the institutions own Web page that
  details its AP credit and placement policies
• A statement by the college or university about
  their AP policy

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FACULTY/ADVISOR RESOURCES

• CLEP Resource Center
• http//ntis01.ets.org/onyx/clep/clepadmin.htm
• User Name clepadmin
• Password CLEPmsa11 (case number sensitive)
• AP Central
• http//apcentral.collegeboard.com/

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Questions and Answers
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WANT MORE INFORMATION?

• Michelle Overstreet
• Higher Education Assessment Manager
• [phone]
• moverstreet_at_collegeboard.org
• Janet Swandol
• Associate Director, CLEP
• [phone]
• jfswandol_at_collegeboard.org
• Thank you!