How early to start working on college credits?

[cookderosa]

The age isn't an issue, really, unless they are under 13. If they are, then you'll need to consider an additional step of completing a waiver that allows them to participate.

The primary generic readiness issue is reading level. CLEP and other college level exams are written for those capable of understanding 100 and 200 level college textbooks. For a student reading on grade level, they may understand the content well enough but be overwhelmed by the complexity of language used during an exam. So, the short answer, is that they should be reading at LEAST at the 11th or 12th grade level by any measure. I have a friend whose 9 year old passed a CLEP exam. She is exceptional obviously. I know ADULTS in real life who do not read at that level, so again, it's not necessarily a question of age the number.

In my opinion, readiness is harder to consider when you're talking about minors. Adults are an entirely different story - when should adults have started CLEP? Yesterday.
When should teens/children start CLEP? Ehhh.... there are a lot of variables.

I do differ in my enthusiasm for adults taking CLEP exams than teens, and I'm super-pro-CLEP. The caution I have for teens is that the PARENT can get off track. For one, adults have already graduated from high school. They did homework, and writing, and critical thinking, and all of the skills that take TIME to nurture. CLEPping out of college in high school fast forwards a teen through high school and gen eds of college. While I'm sure there are teens that are fine, if they opted to attend traditional college on campus <gasp> they could go from 10th grader to college junior in 1 year. That brings in more issues than we can cover here. But honestly, this is a parent-planning issue.

Some pitfalls would include being overly enthusiastic in degree planning for a kid that hasn't even got pimples yet, or over-investing in a certain degree / major / college *just because* you've knocked out some CLEP. That's really not a good reason to pick a college, mainly I'm of the opinion that the homeschooling parent should plan the diploma and the teenager should plan their degree (or apprenticeship, or military, or gap year, or internship, or certificate, or whatever THEY want to pursue).

I think it's a shame when a parent signs Timmy up for TESU's distance learning degree in business *just because* it's low hanging fruit. It deprives the teen of a big stage in their maturity in my opinion <grin> which is worth exactly what you paid for it.

Edit to add: so when to take a CLEP? When it fits in with their study. Did they study US History? Good, there are CLEPs for that. If you're asking "what college will accept my 9th grader's CLEP?" or "how will I know that their CLEP exam will be accepted?" then you're already down the rabbit hole. No one asks that about AP exams - so I'm of the opinion that AP and CLEP should be regarded with the same model. Teach a course, do exam prep, take an exam. Repeat. Later, apply for college and see what happens. There are a dozen reasons someone would choose CLEP over AP, the least of which is that they are accepted at 3200 schools vs 2900. AP is now Common Core aligned, all require writing, they are offered only 1/year, more expensive than CLEP, you have to take them at a high school, many high schools treat homeschoolers who want to take AP like crap, AP doesn't have College Algebra and a handful of other subjects, AP scores are not confidential, etc...........