Challenging Courses for Credit by Examination

NCCU subscribes to the belief that learning can occur in places other than the classroom and through measures other than those practiced in the regular classroom setting. NCCU subscribes also to the principle that undergraduate students should be provided opportunities to demonstrate that skills and knowledge they have acquired outside their normal classroom operations are equivalent to the competencies they attain through their regular classroom activities.

Based on these principles, the university adheres to the following policy on challenge of undergraduate courses for undergraduate credit:

Subject to the limitation stated in the following challenge procedures:

• Undergraduate students may challenge for credit any course in the General Education Curriculum (GEC) that has been approved for challenge by the GEC Advisory Council.
• Undergraduate courses not in the GEC may be challenged only with the consent of the department or school in which the courses are housed.

1. Only currently enrolled students may challenge courses, unless the challenging students are members of an official NCCU program that explicitly includes such challenges as part of the curriculum.

2. Students may not challenge courses in which they have previously made a grade other than W.

3. Students carrying 15 hours, but fewer than 21 hours, in a regular term may challenge, without extra charge, enough eligible courses to make their total hours (enrolled and challenged) equal to 21.

4. Students carrying 15 hours, but fewer than 21 hours, may challenge enough eligible courses to make their total of enrolled and challenged hours exceed 21 hours in a regular term, but they will be charged the regular credit hour rate for all challenged hours above 21 hours.

5. Students carrying fewer than 15 hours may challenge eligible courses, but they will be charged the regular credit hour rate for all challenged courses between the number they are taking and 15 credit hours. If the number of challenged hours and enrolled hours exceeds 21, they will be charged the regular credit hour rate for the challenges between the number enrolled and 15 hours, plus the same rate for all hours over 21 hours.

6. If the challenge is conducted through a standardized, externally supplied test, the students will pay the cost of the test and/or the cost of administering and scoring the test, in addition to the cost, if any, of the credit earned by the challenge.

7. Challenge examinations may be by department-authorized standardized test or by department-developed test. If the test is a department-developed test, the test must be department approved and withstand the test of reliability and validity.

8. During each semester or summer session in which faculty resources are available, challenges must be completed by 5 p.m. of the 12th business day following the first day of classes.

9. Department and schools may, in order to administer the challenges efficiently, establish deadline dates for applications for challenges. The departments and schools must publish such deadlines at the beginning of the pertinent semester or summer session when faculty resources are available. The notice must include both the deadline for application and the date of the examination itself.

10. A student may challenge a given course only one time.

11. Passing grades for challenges are A, B, and C only and are reported to the Registrar through channels designated by the appropriate dean. Grades below C will be reported as unsuccessful challenges but will not appear on the student’s transcript or other grade reports. Departments and schools will keep a record of each challenge attempt in order to enforce the provision of #10 above. Standardized external test score results will be interpreted from predetermined criteria by individual schools and departments and reported as A, B, or C grades. Passing grades for challenges will have all the same qualities of the same grades the students earn in regular classes. Passing grades for challenges are counted for any purpose for which similar regular classroom course grades are counted. Grades earned through challenges will be so designated on the student’s transcript in order that changes may be ascertained whenever the total of enrolled and challenged hours exceed 21.

12. Challenges are a purely academic matter; hence, all disputes about permission to challenge courses, appeals from grades in challenged courses, and other procedural or substantive questions about the challenge process will be handled through the same procedures and structures established by the appropriate dean for handling such questions for the regular classroom courses.

NCCU is an approved national CLEP Testing Center, through which students may arrange to take examinations in English composition, mathematics, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences and history in order to receive credit and advanced placement in these areas.

Baccalaureate students will be granted credit for each test in the battery in the award of up to six semester hours of credit in the areas covered by the tests; the total amount of credit granted for all five tests will not exceed 30 semester hours of credit or the equivalent of one academic year.

Credits awarded through CLEP by accredited institutions will be accepted on the same basis as other transfer credits from those institutions. Credit will be awarded on the basis of minimum scores in the scaled score ranges for the 90-minute General Examinations.