My son went to a different University but he needed both macro and micro economics for his major. He had one from AP credit but took the CLEP for the other. Also if your student took the AP test but didn’t get the score needed for credit you could take the CLEP to try again for credit if it makes sense for their major. (I wouldn’t do that for a course that is important to the major)
It’s literally the same college credit, except you don’t take a whole class before you sit for the exam.
In the Stone Ages, I CLEPped out of 15 or 18 credits - honestly can’t remember - by taking the exams one Saturday over the summer before college started. English, history, science, art/humanities - I think one other; maybe another history. I did not study at all. I don’t recall them being hard.
Your college has to accept them; mine did. Obv. check first.
More info here:
Did either of you @FallTree or @Gatormama ever make sense of the portal moving to "new first-time freshman?’ Having same experience and wondering if it means anything relative to the UA admission decision. Thanks.
My son was a full IB diploma student and had 5 AP classes as well. But, he never took AP Chemistry. He only had regular chemistry and was able to study enough to pass the CLEP exam. I don’t know that I’d use it for something key to a major, but for gen ed classes it would be great. My son started with 45 credits from AP and IB and then got 8 more from CLEP.
We had a really nice trip for Capstone scholars day. Flew in on Fri and left Sun morning. We spend Fri afternoon walking all over the campus and finally landed in the engineering welcome center. Had a great time chatting with the scholarship counselor and two students. The actual day was well organized. The only meh was the mock lecture. I would have much rather spent more time visiting the engineering department. On that, I think about 75% of the students were either CS/CSE/cyber or mechanical eng kids. Our chemical engineering tour had maybe 8 kids?
The campus is lovely and very welcoming. There is a distinct lack of diversity at least based on what we saw from our visit. Might or might not be an issue for some.
The downtown area is very nice. We went to Mesa for dinner on Friday and the River on Saturday. Both were great meals! Servers at both were UAB students and raved about their experience.
Overall, a solid 8 out of 10 experience.
This is an amazing idea. My son is in 10th grade Chemistry and second year spanish right now and breezing through them. I think I will have him take both CLEP exams right after school ends when his knowledge is fresh and see how he does. I have heard Modern States is a fantastic way to study for these.
I am going to play the devil’s advocate and say that this can well backfire for certain majors. For example, many med/dental/pharmacy schools require that applicants take core courses at a 4 year school. For students wanting to study engineering, I am not sure starting freshman year with statics, calc 3 and other hard courses is a great idea either, especially if GPA has to be maintained for scholarships. I know it is not for my son.
One great thing about Alabama is that their core requirement is only about 30 credits. This was highlighted during the visit. So, plenty of opportunities to take classes in areas of interest and double major within 4 years.
I left the mock lecture and stood outside with the student volunteers conversing with my daughter. I felt the time spent was much more valuable. My son2025 said the students involved with Capstone Scholars seemed to really love their school experience opposed to UCF where he said they all seemed fake.
I hear you. If they take the CLEP exam, there’s not reason they HAVE to take the credits, correct? Seems like, the same as AP credit, that would be a something you claim after you have enrolled and figured out your courseplan. My younger son may not even want to go to Bama, but he’s interested and knowing they take all those CLEP credits is great. If he were wanting to major in Chemical Engineering (my major) I would say he needs to take Chemistry in college. But he currently says Mechanical or Computer Engineering, which really doesn’t need chemistry.
I am not worried about him jumping into hard classes freshman year. His high school classes are incredibly rigorous and harder than many college classes. I would love for him to be able to double major or take some fun things.
My son’s an engineering major. He started in Calc 1 because he wasn’t sure he really learned it well enough after the past 2 years of a mess of high school. Having AP/IB/CLEP credits for the general classes let him start at 12 credits to see how college goes and how much time the marching band really took. And it will let him easily fit in a minor and take other classes that interest him more.
Other majors have different requirements so the same high school results might end up differently for credits. You definitely have to look at each student’s situation and do what makes sense. I don’t know requirements for medical school, but people looking at going that way should understand what taking any credit should mean.
If interested, check out a podcast series about the STEM Path to the MBA program at the University of Alabama. It’s on Spotify and called “Commitment to the Path”. Good information on the program including professor profiles. 10-20 minutes episodes.
There is The Strip…1/2 mile from the Student Center, on the edge of campus. A few student bars and restaurants there mixed in with Publix, Chipotle, etc.
Then there is Downtown Tuscaloosa…maybe 6-8 blocks or so of restaurants and bars 1.5-2.0 miles from the center of campus. Pretty decent food options and can get busy on Friday/Saturday nights.
Then there is Northport…just over the bridge from Downtown Tuscaloosa. Lots of chain restaurants and some authentic places mixed in. More typical suburban/strip mall environment.
Then there is the area outside of campus with a mall and chain restaurants, etc.
Those are the options I noticed during my visit last weekend.
This will be a dumb question, but where do you see the scholarships/financial aid on the portal? Is it on myBama? I was just looking on there and can see the email and scholarship applications and such, but I don’t see the financial aid. My brain is working slowly today, so I could use some help.
Thanks!
i’m like 51% on this – but i dont think it shows up in the portal till at least financial aid shows up. we don’t see anything for our d23; and with our older son i sort of remember having to wait quite awhile on it all. …
ok, thank you! We had never even seen that section. S23 has a National Recognition Award that is not listed there, but he has received a physical letter with the offer. I was hoping to see it on the portal. I appreciate all the help from this thread to find the place where it will appear.