Home school High School- Homeschooling College with the CLEP Test

Earning college credit is not something you can only do if you’re enrolled in college. Many students receive college credit-essentially homeschooling college-despite the fact that they’re still in high school, and summer is a great time to do this. My sons homeschooled college one summer right after their junior year, when I wanted to find out what they knew before applying to college. This helped us to be certain that they were placed correctly. They received all of their college credits through CLEP tests over the summer, and it’s something that you can do, also.

The first step to homeschooling college is to assess. The book that we found most helpful in this process was The CLEP Official Study Guide. I had my sons check out the table of contents in this study guide and determine which of the tests they thought they might be able to pass. Then they took that selected sample test, and if they got 50 or more, we knew it was worth studying for the official test. A score of 50 (or sometimes lower) is usually a passing score on the CLEP, as all of their questions are challenging.

The next step we did was study, not to mention we got a study guide for the subject area that they were going to take a test. For example, my youngest son’s highest score was in American History so I got the REA study guide for CLEP American History and gave him one week to review it at his leisure. He would just sit there and read his REA study guides during swim meets; it wasn’t complicated, and it didn’t bother him in the least. Different people might do a small amount of study for half and hour or an hour a day for a while just to see if they can get the best possible score.

The next step in homeschooling college is to actually take your student to the testing area. You must make an appointment to take the exam, and to do this, just visit the College Board website at www.collegeboard.com. Find the CLEP section at the bottom of the page, and find the locations close to you where tests are offered. Tests are scored following your student completes the test (with a few exceptions), which means that you will know before you leave what their final score is. Different colleges give credit for CLEP scores in different ways. Such as, one college might offer your student 5 college credits for a score of 50, while others might award only 3 credits for the same score. Check with the colleges you’re thinking about to learn about their policies and score requirements.

Although you can if you want to, you don’t have to report your test scores to a college instantly. During the summer when we homeschooled college, we only reported scores to my sons’ number-one college. We did this because I felt very confident that this college would be happy that I was keeping touch with them, but we didn’t report scores to all the other colleges that they applied to.