<p>Son is entering UA next year with 36 AP credits, and has received the National Merit/Presidential Scholarship. We have heard that he can take the Spanish CLEP test and possibly earn more credit and fulfill a Language requirement. Since he didn’t take spanish in his senior year because of scheduling conflicts, he was planning to study/review this summer and take the CLEP test which could give him 8, 11 or 14 credits depending how well he scored. If he does really well and gets the 14 credits, would that jeopardize his “freshman” standing and his scholarship. If this is the case, could he take the CLEP test after his 1st semester at UA and would these credits then count? Or do you think it wouldn’t make a difference when he takes the test?</p>
<p>Not at all. He can take the CLEP whenever he wants, because UA simply doesn’t penalize students for having too many credits coming in. I’m coming in with over 45 credits and, at least to my knowledge, it has not affected my scholarship in any way.</p>
<p>“Incoming Freshman” standing is not affected by DE, AP, IB or CLEP credits. While he won’t be a freshman “credit wise”, that’s fine. He’ll still be an “incoming freshman” for scholarship purposes.</p>
<p>The only time a student lose his “incoming freshmen” status is if he goes to college AFTER he graduates (excluding the summer between senior/frosh year). </p>
<p>BTW…with 36 AP credits, he’s already going to have soph standing anyway. </p>
<p>Virtually all honors/NMF kids are coming in with AP/IB/DE/CLEP credits and many/most have soph or junior “standing” but are still considered to be “incoming freshmen.”</p>
<p>Technically, a student can only count up to 45 credits (AP, IB, CLEP), but if a student has more than that, I think he can pick which ones he wants to count…because usually kids have too many history or too many science credits. Or in your son’s case, maybe too many FL credits. For instance, if he gets 14 CLEP credits, but only needs 10, then he can choose to only use 10.</p>
<p>My son is a CS major and does not need any foreign language credits. Would there be any benefit to him taking the CLEP anyway or would those just be wasted credits? (Not sure if he would pass anyway as he only has 2 years of high school foreign language.)</p>
<p>Credits for a foreign language that aren’t being used to fulfill the language requirement can be used to fulfill the humanities gen ed requirement.</p>