Policies and Procedures for Earning Credit

It’s important to understand the policies and procedures for credit by exam and evaluation of credentials.

Policies

The following are the policies to apply for evaluating credit:

  1. Only if you are currently enrolled, and have attended past the census date, or are a former Del Mar College student are you eligible to apply for credit. Informal evaluation will be done free of charge.
  2. Credit by exam - College Board Standard Advance Placement (AP), College Board Achievement Exam (SAT I and SAT II), College Level Examination Program (CLEP) and Defense Activity for Nontraditional Education Support (DANTES) will be accepted as "credit only" (CR) and will not affect your Grade Point Average (GPA).
  3. Only an "A" or "B" grade receives credit for departmental exams. Grade points are given for a departmental exam and a footnote indicating that credit was obtained by examination will be indicated on your transcript.
  4. Credit earned by evaluation of credentials will be determined by the pass/fail method. No grade other than "CR", the number of credit hours, course number and title are recorded on your transcript.
  5. Examinations retakes are contingent to each individual department and test company policies. Some departmental examinations cannot be retaken.
  6. Credit by examination satisfies degree requirements in the same way as credit earned by passing courses, except that it cannot be used to satisfy the 25 percent of semester credit hours earned at Del Mar College, which is the residency requirement for graduation.
  7. Credit may not be earned by examination for most performance-oriented courses, such as music ensembles, drama productions, dance performances, radio-television shows, speech competitions, physical activities, etc.

Procedures

The following is the protocol to follow for recording credit:

  1. Obtain a petition to record credit in the Registrar’s Office or the appropriate academic department.
  2. Have the petition signed by the department chairperson.
  3. Pay the required fee at the Business Office.
  4. Take the test or present documentation for evaluation. If credit is granted, the results will be forwarded by the department chairperson, to the dean and to the Registrar’s Office.

You can get more detailed information about testing procedures from the appropriate academic department.

Fees

A statement of testing fees and evaluation charges is available at the Business Office and additional information for the petitioning and recording of credit is available in the Registrar’s Office.