This is the tricky part. Most schools won’t provide you with a road map of CLEPs you can take for your specific degree. So this is going to take a little detective work on your part.
You’ll need 3 documents from your school to get started:
- Program Evaluation: A list of the courses (or slots) you need to fulfill to graduate.
- Traditional Class Options: A list of traditional courses available to fill your general education slots.
- CLEP Equivalents: A list of the CLEP exams the school accepts, with course equivalents.
Basically, we’ll be figuring out your graduation requirements. THEN we’ll figure out which of these requirements (aka ‘slots’) can be filled using CLEP instead.
Let’s go over each of these items, step-by-step.
Document #1. Program Evaluation: A list of courses (or subjects) needed to graduate, to find your empty “slots”.
Hopefully, your school has provided you with a Program Evaluation or course plan. This is basically a list of all the courses or subjects you’ll need to graduate. For many of you, this list will contain a lot of empty “slots” for free electives or general education courses.
SNHU QuickLink
For SNHU students, you can access this list by logging into my.snhu.edu and clicking Program Evaluation in the sidebar.
Document #2. Traditional Class Options: A list of classes you can take to fulfill your degree requirements. For general education requirements like the freshman-level math, science, and art, colleges often provide a shortlist of course options that can fulfill each slot.
For example, my school requires that I take 3 math credits (equivalent to one course) to graduate. But, I can fill that slot by taking MAT-100, MAT-101, or MAT-102 at my school.
So you’ll need your school’s Academic Catalog, or a sheet like this provided by the school outlining which courses can be used to fill the slots in your course plan.
SNHU QuickLink
For SNHU online students, this list is called the General Education Program, and it can be found in the Academic Catalog.
Document #3. CLEP Equivalencies: A list of accepted CLEP exams, to see which traditional classes they’ll replace.
Ask your school for a list of the CLEP exams they accept. The list should include a breakdown of how they’ll apply each class. It should looks something like this:
| CLEP Exam | Equivalent | Credits |
| College Algebra | MAT-103 | 3 |
| American Government | POL-210 | 3 |
| American Literature | LIT-220 | 3 |
SNHU QuickLink
SNHU students can download their CLEP list from the SNHU website. (Scroll down to the ‘CLEP’ section).
Piece it All Together with a Spreadsheet
You’ll need to read through these three elements to determine which CLEP exams will apply to your degree.
Make a Spreadsheet!
I recommend making a spreadsheet to keep track of requirements, traditional class options, and the CLEP classes that fulfill them. I use this to keep track of traditional courses too.
Tracking Spreadsheet Sample
You can download my CLEP tracking sheet as an example. If you’re an SNHU student, the required courses may look familiar. But yours will look very different depending on your major, requirements, or CLEPs you choose to take.
I’ve already earned my associates in liberal arts from SNHU , but I want to continue with a BA in sociology and community health I went to know which Cleo exams I can take
Congrats on earning your Associates! You’ll have to work with your advisor to determine the specific CLEP exams you can apply to your degree program. My recommendation is to review your degree requirements, class-by-class, and then look at SNHU’s master list of accepted CLEP exams to see if any of them line up. (More information on this process is available here.) Because you’ve already earned your Associates, I imagine that most of your general education requirements have already been met, so CLEP won’t be much help on that front. But if you have any free elective slots to fill, CLEP might be a good fit. Good luck!