Background: My wife is enrolled at local CC in an associates degree program. Upon completion, she plans to transfer to a regional state university to obtain her bachelors degree. These two institutions have a signed transfer agreement for the program she is transferring into. This agreement describes what classes to take at the CC and then what classes are required at the university to finish the degree. The agreement is signed by provost from each institution and valid for some period of time when it is supposed to be reviewed and updated.
Any case, I thought my wife’s skills in some subject areas easily exceeded the introductory classes she was required to take at the CC so I encouraged her to enroll and take the CLEP exam for college composition. She did and easily met the minimum recommended passing grade and has earned credit at the local CC for composition 1 and composition 2.
After this transpired, I was looking at the regional university website and discovered that they don’t accept CLEP for college composition credit. (They do accept CLEP for 25+ other subject areas.)
My question is how this may or may not transfer. Once she earns credit by testing at the CC, thus satisfying the local CC requirements for an associates degree, how is that information sent to regional university? Will the university be able to see the credit was earned by CLEP and then reject it based on their existing policy?
Thanks for any insight you may be able to provide.
She needs to discuss this with her transfer counselor. Most articulation agreements mean that nothing gets reviewed. If the CC says a requirement is fulfilled, that is all that matters.
Other articulation agreements have other ways of handling credits for exam. For example, your wife might be admitted directly to the program she wants because the CC’s requirements are fulfilled, but then required to take a class at the receiving institution because of the one CLEP course. Frankly, that isn’t a bad option. It’s likely that she would be asked to take a higher level course than the one her CLEP replaced.
I think for now she will just let things go and see what happens when the time comes. Can always take the classes later if necessary; all she would be out is the testing fee and a few hours of prep work.
I was also reading the university website where they state something to the effect that students who complete the Ohio Transfer Module (OTM) at another school will be considered to have completed the regional university’s gen ed requirements. I think a strong argument could be made that she completed the CC’s requirements for the OTM and should not have to take any subsequent classes.
If the articulation of transfer credit is course by course, then any CLEP, AP, IB, etc. credit is presumably done according to the receiving school’s policy.
However, if it is done by acceptance of a group of courses certified by the CC (if that is what OTM is, like IGETC in California), then the receiving school may accept the entire group as certified by the CC.
But verify with the receiving school in either case.