For those new to the subject, CLEP stands for College Level Examination Program, and it allows students to earn college credit when they have achieved a certain amount of college learning in a particular subject. CLEP exams do not have an age limit. It is not unusual to see 14 or 15 year olds taking and passing the CLEP exams. My youngest son passed 16 CLEP exams when he was 15 years old. This was worth almost two years of college, but the college he wanted to attend would only accept one year of CLEP for credit (9 tests). However, the other tests were not wasted because they allowed him to place in higher division college classes when he started college at age 16.

One question I get from parents going down this path is where to put CLEP results on their homeschool transcript, especially for a young student. Here are a couple of ideas you can consider.

High School Credit Determination

Since each CLEP is a college placement test, you can be sure that if they can pass it as a college course, they CERTAINLY could pass it as a high school course. Be sure to include all college-level courses on the transcript, no matter how you test the class (community college or CLEP exam) and no matter how old they are (12 or 18 still counts).

naming courses

For each CLEP exam your student passes, place a class with the same title on their transcript. That’s especially helpful if you’re not exactly sure what your child has learned in a course. Tests can help you decide what they learned and how much.

Decide on honors

Since CLEP represents a quantity of college knowledge, just like an AP exam, then it would really be an “honors” class. When they pass a test, you can add “honors” to the course designation. CLEP tests would be handled on the transcript just like AP exams.

External documentation of learning

Since CLEP exams provide an “official transcript”, it may be the third-party proof you need to prove that this course stands up to any scrutiny. For each CLEP course, place a designation by the course title on the transcript, showing that there is external documentation. So it might look like this in a transcript: CLEP English Literature, or CLEP Microeconomics.

Early High School Credits

If they pass the CLEP exam prior to high school, you can choose to chart the classes by year and place the CLEP courses in the ninth grade OR indicate they were “early high school credits.” You can also choose to avoid all of that by simply organizing the transcript by subject, rather than by year.