Credit for prior learning (CPL) practices have been in place in the California Community Colleges system for years. Standardized exams are included in the possibilities available for awarding CPL, with various options available for colleges to grant CPL for such exams.
Advanced Placement (AP) exams and International Baccalaureate (IB) high level exams are the most familiar standardized tests and have regulations and articulations both supporting and guiding their applicability to CPL. Title 5 §§55052 and 55052.5 describe AP and IB exams respectively. In terms of score applicability, the California State University General Education Breadth (CSU GE-Breadth) and both the current Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC) and the California General Education Transfer Curriculum (Cal-GETC) effective in Fall 2025, as developed by the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates (ICAS), specify that minimum scores of 3 or higher on an AP test and 5 or higher on IB high-level exam scores can be used to award credit. The specific area of CSU GE, IGETC, and Cal-GETC to which a particular exam applies is also specified in CSU systemwide policy (CSU, 2024), IGETC Standards (ICAS, 2023 May), and Cal-GETC Standards (ICAS, 2023 Dec.). Given that both intersegmental agreement and some alignment of AP and IB scores have been established for GE applicability, community college faculty are encouraged to consider how AP and IB scores may apply to local GE patterns.
Applicability of AP and IB scores to major requirements, however, varies by campus in the UC and CSU systems, and students should consult with a counselor for guidance in these matters. In the California Community Colleges system, discipline faculty are encouraged to consider whether AP or IB courses may be applicable to meet discipline or major course requirements for a local associate degree or certificate.
College Level Examination Program (CLEP) exams are acknowledged in Title 5 §55052.5. CLEP exams are available to anyone anywhere in the world, and their use is more common among international students or U.S. citizens living abroad. Neither IGETC nor Cal-GETC accepts CLEP exams, but CSU GE does accept them according to CSU policy (CSU, 2024). Community colleges may also vary in their acceptance policies for CLEP exams to meet local general education or major requirements for degrees and certificates.
A suite of standardized tests is also available through Cambridge International (CI), a K-12 curriculum supported by Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. CI exams are not currently applicable to CSU GE, IGETC, or Cal-GETC. CI programs, however, are structured similarly to AP and IB, where the exams are the capstone assessment for a course a student has taken. CI exams indicate different levels of secondary education, the AS level that roughly equates to an introductory college course and the A level that roughly equates to the first and second levels in college. Fifty-five courses are offered at either the AS or A level. CI courses and students with CI exam credit are currently more common overseas. CI is expanding in the U.S., initially primarily outside of California, but some schools in-state are starting to adopt the curriculum.
As awareness of CI expands, colleges can expect that post-secondary education institutions in California will receive CI scores from students domestically and abroad. Guidance is available to post-secondary institutions regarding acceptance of CI scores at https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/Images/502996-as-a-level-factsheet-english.pdf. In addition, Title 5 §55050 tells colleges to consider the American Council on Education’s (ACE) recommendations on awarding credit. As of this writing, the ACE has unit recommendations for seventeen CI exams on their website.
Discipline faculty are primarily responsible for making decisions about awarding credit for external exams, but counselors and articulation officers will be able to provide discipline faculty with guidance in making the best decisions for awarding credit. To make informed decisions, faculty must be aware of what external exams are available and the educational goals of students. Sometimes even post-baccalaureate goals must be considered when deciding whether to apply external exam credit to major preparation. Understanding how transfer institutions accept credit for external exams is also important for deciding how community colleges should award credit for those exams.
References
California State University. (2024, January 6). CSU Systemwide Credit for External Examinations.
Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates. (2023, May 31.) Standards, Policies and Procedures for Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum. Version 2.4.
Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates. (2023, December 11). Cal-GETC Standards. Version 1.1.