Important Notice to Students - If you plan to complete an associate degree or CSU or IGETC certification within the San Mateo County Community College District, submit official AP, IB, or CLEP exam results to your Admissions and Records Office.
SMCCD applies external exam credit to associate degree general education requirements in the same manner as CSU applies external exam credit to CSU general education requirements. The results will appear on your student Web SMART Degree Works Audit.
External Exams
- Advance Placement Exams (AP)
- College Level Examination Programs (CLEP)
- International Baccalaureate Exams (IB)
Additional Information on External Exams:
- Issues around credit for external exams are complex. Where this is common use for general education AREAS as noted above, the application of units, the use of external exams to meet major requirements, and more, is complex and individual to the receiving transfer institution. It is up to the student to thoroughly research this information.
- Students who have earned credit through AP, IB, and/or CLEP should not take a comparable college course because credit will not be granted for both the external examination and the comparable college course.
- San Mateo Community College District applies AP, IB, and CLEP credit to associate degree general education area requirements in the same manner as the CSU system applies AP, IB, and CLEP credit to CSU GE area requirements.
- The chart does not provide information about if or how external exam results apply to major course requirements. Applying AP, IB, or CLEP credit to meet major requirements is determined by each transfer institution.
4A. At Cañada College, College of San Mateo, and Skyline College, each instructional division determines IF OR HOW AP, IB, and/or CLEP credit is applied to associate degree major or certificate requirements. - The chart identifies how external exams are applied to IGETC areas, CSU GE areas, and associate degree general education areas only. It does not provide information about transfer credit generated by external exams for the purpose of admissions.
- Students earning an AP score of 3, 4, or 5 in the physical and biological science examinations meet IGETC Area 5 and meet the IGETC laboratory activity requirement. AP exams in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics B allow California community colleges to apply 4 semester units to IGETC area certification to cover both the science lecture and science lab unit requirements for IGETC Area 5. For Environmental Science, Physics C: Mechanics , and Physics C: Electricity/magnetism, only 3 semester or 4 quarter units are applied to IGETC area 5A and 5C certification which means that students who complete these AP exams are required to complete a 4 semester or 5 quarter unit course to satisfy the minimum required units for IGETC Area 5.
- References to use for information about external exams are:
- CSU External Exam Credit information www.calstate.edu/acadAff/codedmemos/AA-2011-12.pdf
- UC External Exam Credit information www.admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/exam-credit/index.html
- IGETC Standards Version 1.4 www.ccctransfer.org/igetc
- CSU Credit - http://www.calstate.edu/app/general-ed-transfer.shtml (find “use of external exams”)
- Refer to the college catalog of your transfer destination to learn more about how external exam credit is applied on that campus.
