How To EARN College Credit BEFORE You Start College!

There are many mandatory college classes that you have to take in order to get your college degree. I'm totally screwed! But what most people don't know is there are easy, affordable, and quick ways that you can test out of many of these classes, and that can shorten the length that it takes to get your degree from four to five years, all the way down to something like two years, and in extreme cases, less than a year. Now, most people do not believe this is possible. They think that I'm trying to like chill something when I mention this, and that could not be further from the truth. There is a community of people who take this to the extreme, and they're able to graduate with degrees in less than a year. One of those people is my friend Josh McAdore. He graduated with his computer science degree in less than a semester, and I used many of the methods talked about on this list as well to graduate with a doctorate in five years and nine months. And I'm going to start this list with the ones that are either the best or the most likely to apply to whatever situation you're in, and as we go down the list, we're going to get to ones that are just more and more rare. So, let's jump into the video right now. If you appreciate videos like this, go ahead and let me know by gently tapping that like button and also commenting down below. And if you haven't done it already, go ahead, subscribe, hit the notification bell so you don't miss out on videos like this in the future. So, first one on the list, this is one of the low-hanging fruit, a phenomenal option if your college accepts this, is going to be a website like study.com. And study.com is a super cheap, convenient, and easy way for you to take classes and then test out of them. There are many different examples of classes that you can take at study.com. You can take intro level English classes, sociology, psychology, business, etc. And I'll have a list down below of some of the most common classes that people use study.com in order to test out of. Now, this is another one of those where you do have to see if your college accepts these credits, but generally speaking, if they accept them, you should absolutely do this. You can take up to five classes per month. And not to steal Josh's thunder, you should definitely go check out his video. He has an awesome channel. But this is one of the primary ways that he was able to graduate in less than a semester with a computer science degree. So, if this is an option for you, absolutely low-hanging fruit. You must take advantage of this. The classes have like a 92% pass rate. They're also really good and engaging. And a lot of people actually use study.com over 30 million people a month just to take the classes alone, even if they're not going to get credit for them. And during the pandemic, when a bunch of schools went online, many of them actually turned to study.com because their curriculum is that good. So, definitely check them out. One of my favorite services, study.com is phenomenal. They're going to be down in the description below. The second low-hanging fruit option that I always recommend to people is going to be CLEP tests. Now, CLEP stands for the College Level Examination Program. And these basically allow you to take tests if you think you are proficient in a subject and you shouldn't have to take it during college. You can take these tests and you don't have to take a class or anything like that before you take the tests. And as long as you score over 50%, you can test out of that class. Now, some of the tests are harder than others, but many of them, people report that they Others report that they studied the night before or they just studied a little bit and they used resources that are for free online. So, these aren't like super difficult, like AP tests, for instance. They are relatively easy. And CLEP credit is more commonly accepted than study.com, but you still want to make sure you check on the website to see if your school accepts these. And to be honest with you, if you're considering a few different colleges and your college doesn't accept these, there's pretty much only one reason for that, and that is they want to make more money off of you. Because especially when it comes to classes that everybody has to take anyways, like, you know, English 101, Communications 101, Liberal Arts classes, there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to test out of these. Number three on the list is going to be dual enrollment programs in high school. So, this one's really difficult for me to talk about because it's going to be different depending on the state you live in and all kinds of other factors. But some states will offer the ability for you to take classes while you're still in high school. Now, sometimes it's super easy and straightforward. You can just take the classes literally at your high school and you get college credit while you're taking classes at your high school. Sometimes it's a little more complicated and they bus you to colleges so you can actually take college classes, but you're technically still in high school. There's so many different ways of doing this, but there are many different programs out there. Some of them are going to be different depending on the state you live in. So, for instance, in the state of Washington, they have the Running Start program that allows 11th and 12th graders to take college classes. Students earn both high school and college credit at the same time and tuition is completely free. So, students who take advantage of Running Start could potentially test out of their first two years worth of university classes before they even technically start college. So, definitely worth looking into. Most people don't even look into this. They don't even know that their state has this as an option. So, it's something you absolutely want to research. And even if your state doesn't have it as a dedicated option, sometimes if you go above and beyond, maybe you contact different community colleges, you might be able to work something out. For instance, you might be able to take online classes at a community college while you're still going to high school. A lot of the time, gifted students, for instance, are able to work this out just because their parents or whoever is representing them call the universities. But even if you're not a gifted student, you can still take advantage of this a lot of the time in your junior or senior year. You just might have to be a little bit more proactive about it if your state doesn't make it easy for you. Number four on the list is going to be summer classes, extra classes, or online classes that you can take while you are in college. So, summer classes are pretty self-explanatory. When most people go home and they're not taking any units, you can take a couple of extra classes during the summer. And if you consistently do this, you can shave off a semester, maybe even a little bit more. You can also take extra classes during the semester itself. So, usually you'll take about 15 credits of classes per semester. But if you take extra classes, maybe you can take 18 or 21. And that can be exceptionally difficult, so be very careful if you try to do that. But it is an option that some people explore. And then the other option is they actually take online classes from a different university that they know those credits transfer to their university while they're taking their classes from the university itself. Now, depending on the university you go to, some of them make it really easy for you to do that. Some of them make it very difficult, but it can be a good option. Number five on the list is going to be probably one of the most common options that people use and probably one of the least good, if I'm being honest. And that is going to be AP, which is Advanced Placement, or IB, which is International Baccalaureate exams. Now, these are basically where you take college credit classes during high school. They're typically very difficult classes, especially in the high school setting. And then after you finish the class, as long as you pass it, you are then allowed to take an AP exam. And depending on your score on the AP exam, you may or may not get college credit. Whether you get college credit or not, a lot of the time depends on the university itself. Some of them require you to get a score of three in order to get college credit. Some of them require you to get a score of four. And it's even possible for the university to require you to get a score of five in order to test out of a class. Now, getting a score of five can be incredibly difficult. Sometimes only 5% of people who take the exam get a score of five. Three or four is a little bit more reasonable, but it's not going to be easy by any means. And many people end up buying extra resources to study for the exam. So that's going to be extra cost. And it's something where you have to take an entire class that takes a semester. So it takes up a significant amount of your time. But with that being said, it's a very common method. Many, many people have done this in order to test out of a few credits during college. Now, something that is not so common, but it's becoming more common is getting credit for your previous experiences. So many schools are now offering what is known as portfolio assessments, where they basically look back at your career and what you've done during your life. And you can actually test out of classes based off of the experiences that you've had. So for instance, Bowling Green State University is doing this. And there are many universities that will let you test out of certain credits if you have military experience. Another common one you'll see is if you're trying to get an information technology degree, maybe you already have worked in IT, you've got IT certificates. There are many classes that you may be able to test out of then. The next one is going to comprise a bunch of different options. And I'm basically just going to call it testing out of classes other. So one way you can do this is with university challenge exams. And one example of this is the DSST, or Dante's Subject Standardized Tests. Now, this is most commonly used by military members, but it's not exclusively available to only military members. It's becoming more and more common for just normal people to take these tests. And it is a two-hour exam. And if you pass it, you get to test out of that credit. Another example of this is the Excelsior College Exam, or ECE. Now, this one is a little bit more expensive. It's about $195 in order to take the test. But there are 50 different exams available. So make sure you check with your school to see if these are an option as well. I will say that in my experience, not as many people have been able to benefit from these options as some of the others that I've mentioned. But if you are able to benefit from it, it is going to be a phenomenal choice. Then last on the list is just going to be a combination of all of the above, right? So you don't really want to just use one or the other. You want to look at your situation, look at what your goals are, and figure out how you can use many of these options to graduate early. And if you're able to do this, it's going to save you a ton of time, effort, and money. Absolutely worth it to explore these options, even if it just causes you to graduate a semester early. Check out my other videos right here. I made them just for you. Go ahead and gently tap that like button, hit the subscribe button, ring the notification bell, and comment down below any thoughts, comments, criticisms, etc. that you have on the video, and I will see you next time.