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Rio Salado's CLEP Exams Helps High School Students Earn College Credits
We go to school to learn, but we don’t always show up to class as blank slates. Sometimes we already learn the fundamentals of a subject through work experience, hobbies, or taking courses at different institutions. You don’t have to learn the same thing twice—In those cases, you can earn credit for prior learning.
Rio Salado College’s College-Level Examination Program® (CLEP®) gives students from all walks of life the opportunity to receive college credit for their prior learning. CLEP exams allow people who’ve already acquired extensive knowledge on a particular subject through their work experience or prior study to show that they’ve obtained and mastered college-level material. For home-schooled students, working adults returning to school, military service members, and speakers of world languages looking to fulfill their requirements, the CLEP® exam offers them a venue for their hard work to be recognized.
Rio Salado has already had several groups of students go through CLEP® testing this year: more than 100 students took their CLEP® exams in February and March. Exam results are processed quickly—students learn their results as soon as they complete them at Rio Salado.
Rio Salado’s CLEP® testing draws in students from high schools, trade schools, and other universities. Instructor Steve Clendenen with the Franklin Police & Fire High School has brought students to take the CLEP® Spanish I & II tests over the last ten years.
“The goal is for them to earn college credit in Spanish to showcase the skills they already have,” Clendenen said. “The credits the students earn not only sets them up for success should they continue onto higher education, but can also help if they enlist in the military or seek employment because it demonstrates their abilities.”
Sophomore Giselle Camarillo, 15, took her CLEP® exam at the Rio Salado Tempe campus with some classmates.s. “I felt a little nervous but you just do it,” Camarillo said. “It wasn’t that bad,” Camarillo plans to enroll at Phoenix College when she graduates high school; the credits she’s earned through CLEP® will help get her there.
Another high school sophomore, Hillary Hernandez, 15, said taking the test was easy. “It’s 16 easy credits,” Hernandez. “Who would say no to that, especially at an early age?”
For more information about CLEP® testing, call (480) 517-8560. Hours of operation are 8 a.m. -9 p.m. Monday - Thursday & 8 a.m. -5 p.m. Friday - Saturday.