Your homeschool high school transcript is perfect, but there’s an entry (or two) that tells the college you don’t totally understand high school credits. That small “tell” can open the door to other judgment, bringing added scrutiny to an exceptionally rigorous homeschool experience. I’ve reviewed over 50 homeschool transcripts this year, and this appeared on at least 10 of them, but it’s super easy to fix.
Does your homeschool transcript have the word “CLEP” as a course title? Did you award a letter grade and high school credit for your teen’s CLEP exams? You should fix that.
CLEP is a brand of exam used by colleges to award college credit for prior learning. Additionally, it’s a registered trademark of The College Board, which means you’re advertising to prospective colleges your unauthorized use of a registered trademark. Yikes!
CLEP exams, owned by the College Board, don’t authorize CLEP courses. There are exactly ZERO authorized CLEP courses in existence, and this has been true since the 1970’s. When you award high school credit and a letter grade for a course on your high school transcript, and use CLEP in the title, this is an immediate red flag. Colleges may take issue with the credit, disallow the credit, or simply just ignore it. The problem is that you won’t ever know that this was the case. When colleges review tens of thousands of transcripts each year, they won’t take the time to explain the details of why your student wasn’t admitted.
A very sophisticated approach to documenting your student’s extra accomplishment (and passing a CLEP exam in high school IS A BIG ACCOMPLISHMENT) is to treat it the same as the sister exam: Advanced Placement. When you treat your student’s CLEP exam like public schools treat AP exams, you can’t go wrong.
High schools NEVER award an AP course grade based on the student’s AP exam score. This is because AP courses and AP exams are separate events. A student will earn a high school credit and grade based on their AP course. This letter grade and credit are awarded at the end of the semester, whether or not they ever take the AP exam in May. If, however, a student does take an AP exam in May, the outcome of the exam does not change their high school grade. In fact, AP exam scores come out in July, months after the student has already earned high school credit. You should treat your student’s CLEP exam the same way. Their course (with or without ever taking a CLEP exam) is where your student earns high school credit. Sure, the purpose of your homeschool course may be to also prepare for the CLEP exam, exactly like that of an AP class, but keep them separate.
A quick fix: get in the habit of using titles that identify the subject rather than any brand name. In the case of Advanced Placement, since that can bring prestige and validity to your homeschool transcript, it’s worth the time to have your homeschool curriculum approved by The College Board so you can legally write “Advanced Placement” on the transcript. When the student intends to take a CLEP exam, remember there is no such thing as approved CLEP curriculum, so a simple substitute word is an easy fix. In both cases, if your student takes an exam (CLEP or AP), the scores may be self-reported to future colleges, or considered for inclusion on the transcript somewhere in the footer. This is the proper way to document high school credit and, separately, exam scores.
By mirroring the public schools in how you report CLEP and AP classes / exams, you’ll go from amateur to pro using this quick fix.
