Questions

[evoclue]

I was searching the internet to take free courses (online or not) for college credit over the summer and I stumbled upon this site. I'm a high school senior and I already know what college I'm going to. Should I bother taking any of those FEMA courses or the other ones that are free? Would colleges really give credit for those or is everyone here going for a liberal arts degree? I'm planning on majoring in Biotechnology so would this help at all? Any recommendations would be great too.

Thanks

[nick94]

Welcome to the Forums evoclue!
No matter what you get your degree in you need some general credits so depending on if you have college credit already you might want to look into doing some FEMA. Whether or not colleges accept FEMA credits depends on the college. Some colleges accept 10 FEMA Credits some accept 45, so you should contact your college to see what their stance is. Here is a forum on free online courses, I haven't looked at them all but here is the link! List of Free Online Courses
Hope this Helps!

[Ruddigore]

You should also consider taking CLEP tests, an excellent way to get your majors under your belt before going to college. This saves money and time.

[evoclue]

You should also consider taking CLEP tests, an excellent way to get your majors under your belt before going to college. This saves money and time.

Do CLEPs go on my transcript? For example do they have a letter grade that will influence my GPA? Or do they just give credit like AP tests?

[Ruddigore]

Do CLEPs go on my transcript? For example do they have a letter grade that will influence my GPA? Or do they just give credit like AP tests?

They just give credit like AP exams. That said, the scores of some Dantes/DSST exams do award grades at some schools. If the test scores on a scale of 20 to 80, then it may give a letter grade; I would check with your school first.

[perrik]

Do CLEPs go on my transcript? For example do they have a letter grade that will influence my GPA? Or do they just give credit like AP tests?

Assuming you enroll at a traditional university, CLEP and Dantes (DSST) exams will appear on your transcript as pass credit with no letter grade. It's a great way to take care of your general education requirements. (a lot of us here are enrolled at a college that assigns letter grades to certain DSSTs, but most traditional universities accept them just as pass credit)

Contact your university before taking the FEMA credits - no point in doing them if they aren't accepted.

CLEPs and DSSTs aren't free, but they're still very cheap credit ($70 for CLEP and $80 for DSST, plus a proctoring fee set by the testing center) that you can study for on your own using free resources.

Some universities will accept AP scores but not CLEP/DSST scores (top-tier schools like the Ivies tend to do this), or only give credit for certain exams, so again you need to contact your university before spending the money and time on them.