The courses you CLEP out of are NOT remedial classes. Remedial classes are typically courses that are required to due to students not attaining a certain level of competency in Mathematics and English during their High School years. Again, obtaining a certain SAT/ACT Score or scores on placement exam such as PERT, CPT, etc., will allow you to bypass these remedial courses. Community Colleges do not grant College Credits for those courses and those courses typically extend the time you spend at a Community College, since you cannot advance to more rigorous courses until you complete these remedial courses. BTW, do they do give College Placement Test (College Ready Test) in California High Schools?
If you CLEP out of a certain amount of courses and get credit for these courses that count towards your AA/AS degree, then you will complete your degree much faster (time) and at a lower overall cost. So, if you CLEP out of five Courses (15 credits), you will only need to complete 45 credits at a Community College to get your AA/AS Degree, which is equivalent to about three Semesters. You would have saved 15 X $46/credit in Tuition alone, not to mention the other non-tuition cost and fees.
You can CLEP out of as much as 34 Courses and these courses are listed at the link below:
https://clep.collegeboard.org/exam
Obviously, a number of these courses will not apply to you, so there is only a limited number of courses that might be applicable. You do not want to CLEP out of too many courses if you do not have thorough understanding of the subject matter and being able to attain a passing grade through “clepping”, since this could put you at a disadvantage later at a 4-year Institution (not having a sound foundation to progress to more advanced courses).
By excess credit I mean you do not want to rack up a “significant” amount of credits that will not go towards your Bachelors Degree. I’m not familiar with the California University System, but in a number of States, Students are now being penalized for accumulating significant amount of excess credits and are charged OOS tuition (or some other higher tuition amount) for the number of credits beyond a threshold (110% - 150%) of what is required to complete their undergraduate degree. This might not be applicable to California now, but might be implemented in the future. Excess credit can also impact your Financial Aid over time, since some Federal Grants (Pell Grant?) have upper limits on credits/semesters.
When you do visit your local Community College, these are the questions you should put to someone in Academic Advising and also someone at the Financial Aid Office. Go prepare with a list of pertinent questions to ask. You should also call a number of UCs/USCs to get their feedback on CLEP Courses and transfer requirements. Between now and when you finish High School, you might want to nail down you ultimate career goals and University Major. Lack of a Major or changing College Majors multiple times is one of the main reasons College Students accumulate excessive amount of credits and extend their stay in College.
Lastly, do not buy into this notion that Community Colleges are not as challenging as 4-year Universities. You can get as good an education at CC as a lot of Universities. The key is your dedication and what you put into it. I have also heard from students that the Teaching at Community Colleges they attend was excellent and the Professors were able to break down difficult subject matter much better than those at the 4-year Institutions they eventually transferred to.