Dantes Credit by Examination 101

Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support or DANTES is an off-duty support program for the voluntary educational programs. DANTES credit by examination primary tasks includes providing the military employees all the necessary tools to help them achieve their personal education goals.

Programs and Services

Facilitate distribution of various exams, such as secondary university equivalency, college acceptance, and college credit to military employees.

Troops to instructors is a referral program to assist military employees interested in becoming public school instructors.

Computer Assisted Guidance Information System or DISCOVER provided to education center therapists who assist Service members with degree planning/career guidance.

Department of Defense contact to state Advisory Councils on Military Education and learning.

Conduct CONUS coaching classes.

Acquire and spread reference guides, coaching materials and other resources.

Manage the DoD Voluntary Education Management System, producing data for policy and budget reviews and knowledge for an annual voluntary education fact sheet

Handle higher education agreements with the American Council on Education and Service members Opportunity Colleges

Maintain contact between the active responsibility and Reserve elements through the Special Special Enlisted Advisor and Reserve Component Advisor

Organize preparing and performance of the DoD Worldwide Education Symposium

Provide distance learning catalogs listing programs and courses offered by educational institutions properly approved to receive military tuition assistance

In general, although subject to specific Assistance guidelines, specified boundaries, yearly caps, and accessibility to financing, learners will be provided either up-front or reimbursable educational costs support which may cover 100% of their educational costs and charges. Contact your Service education counselors for current educational costs support guidelines and specifications, as these frequently change. And the liability to know and understand the policy falls on you. You should be aware that you may be required to make an individual payment to the university book store for guides and materials, this is not standard, but some educational institutions make a requisite of it. Although educational institutions accept to inform DANTES credit by examination before changing educational costs and generally attempt to avoid modifying charges during a college year, prices can change before they are joined into the distance learning catalogs. Remember to always check with the university to figure out the correct price before applying.

Dantes Exam Resources

Not only does making credit-by-examination save significantly on per-credit cost, you also do not have to buy overpriced books. Most of the resources necessary to get ready for CLEP or Dantes exam are totally free! The first step when planning for any test is to understand the examination. There are 33 CLEP examinations. The College Board explains the assessments and provides a few sample questions. The Official CLEP Study Guide is released by the makers of the CLEP examinations and provides complete practice assessments, as well as suggestions for planning for the examination. We took numerous CLEP examinations and found the Official CLEP Study Guide to be an important source for verifying our preparedness to take the examination.

If you want to take a Dantes exam, some websites provide a specific summary of each test with sample questions. The authors of the examination have written the Official Study Guide to Perfecting DSST Exams to prepare learners for their eight most popular examinations. Instant Cert is excellent for areas in which you need a lot of work. It uses a sequence of multiple choice questions with specific solutions to easily help you understand the relevant details. If you want an actual book, there are books to almost every topic possible. Sometimes if you have listened to a class on a topic, it’s useful to follow-up with a look through on one of these books.

Thanks to an amazing library system, you can spend less on all four years of higher education credit than you would when actually buying text books to help you study. Even if your library is not as comprehensive as others, planning for a CLEP or Dantes exam is significantly less expensive than a regular higher education and learning course! Even if you are going to a conventional college and learning, I suggest that you consider testing out of some of your general education and learning programs. It will save you money.

Dantes Credit by Examination

Members of the army have the opportunity to earn one-third or more of the credit needed for a college degree through the “Credit-by-Exam” system provided through DANTES. Dantes Credit by Examination, commonly approved by schools, can save your funds as you engage in your academic objectives. Available in more than 150 subjects, they are much like assessments given at the end of any college course. Before getting any of these assessments, it’s sensible to check with the school or higher education you plan to be present at to make sure the credit will meet your stage specifications.

Here are six benefits of getting these exams:

  • Helps you to save Cash – While a typical college course can cost over $100 per credit, DANTES Credit-by-Exam assessments are free.
  • Helps you to save Time – The common course contains between three and six hours per week over the course of three or more months. Based on your detail of knowledge, planning time for each exam could be less than a month.
  • Allows You to Skip Forward – Instead of buying boring freshman-level classes, you can leap right ahead to more interesting innovative ones.
  • Study Groups – Search for people in your unit with similar objectives and meet together on lunchtime breaks.
  • Doesn’t Require College Enrollment – It is not necessary to be registered in a college to take these assessments.
  • Versatility – You can choose your own study materials and set your own work deadlines.

There are three types of exams:

  • CLEP – There are 14 CLEP exams, which are available as paper-based assessments at participating DANTES Test Facilities.
  • DSST – These are a comprehensive sequence of examinations in topics that are much like finals in undergrad programs.
  • ECE – While most are objective multiple-choice questions, some ECE examinations are completely essay based. In addition to information and terminology, these assessments analyze use of essential ideas and abilities.

Comparison between Dantes, CLEP and Excelsior Exams

If you are not sure which CLEP exams to take and how college credit for the following credit-by-examination applications, then here’s the answer. On these three assessments I obtained a high enough score that the college I was participating granted me to be present to learn about their CLEP plan and Dantes exam policies and which examination matches with what class, how many credit they take, or if they take CLEP  or Dantes exam credit at all. The second way to play the gap designed by the credit examinations there would actually be a way to move forward quicker.

There are many choices to select from when it comes to substitute routes to get college credit. Credit-by-exams are assessments that allow you to confirm your knowledge in an area to college credit. It’s an excellent way to accomplish identification of college-level studying for senior students. These assessments are similar to each other somewhat, but there are some exciting technicalities as well. Most of the 33 CLEP assessments are for common knowledge sessions. For Dantes exam, there are 38 topics to choose from in higher and lower stage credit. The Upper Level assessments are more specific and can be used towards a major, and therefore can be more difficult. There are a total of 49 Excelsior College Assessments, of which 15 are medical relevant.

Both CLEP and Dantes exams are provided at local schools, which I found out by looking for exam facilities on both the CLEP and Dantes exam websites. Because each university has its own signing up procedure, I was recommended to contact the test center. While on the phone, they assisted me through the signing up procedure for both assessments and planned a test time frame for me. For the Excelsior College Examination, I planned the test on the internet via Pearson VUE. I like the point that I can check the availability on the internet, as well as the organizing versatility. All the assessments are computer-based and include entirely of multiple-choice concerns. The CLEP and Dantes tests each have 100 questions to be completed in 1.5 hours and 2 hours respectively. The Excelsior College Examination has 120 questions to be completed in 2.5 hours. I found all three assessments I took to be at the same problems stage.

Exploring Credit By Exam

Enrolling in college is now a standard. In the past, you were blessed to be present in a university. Today, however, most kids are required to at least study at community college. Even adults are feeling the stress to get a college degree. Unfortunately, conventional college is not an option for everyone. High college tuition, work plans, and family lifestyle often make it hard to begin or continue college. Fortunately, there are alternatives! Credit by exam is one alternative that many teenagers and adults are starting to take seriously. Credit by exam means that you can get credit for some of the things you already know. Adult scholars, especially, have obtained knowledge outside of the educational setting from the office and life experience. For example, if you demonstrate that you already understand college mathematics, you can test out of that class and get three credits.

This method of making college credit has been around for the last three decades and is becoming more extensive. Although credit by exam assessments like College Level Examination Program (CLEP) and DANTES Subject Standardized Tests were initially designed toward army employees, both are now open to citizens. Nearly 3,000 schools take credit gained from the assessments, but not all schools do. To be prepared, check your college’s policy to make sure credit will be accepted.

Not putting things off is perhaps the biggest benefit of credit by exam. Instead of going through a term on US History, you can avoid taking the class completely by taking the CLEP test on US History. With enough time you preserve, you can spend it attending the innovative programs that you are really after. If you make use of the examinations, you can save months, if not years of educational costs and time. While all of your colleagues are still in college spending cash for an expensive conventional knowledge, you will have a degree and be out in the labor force generating revenue.

DANTES Credit By Exam

The Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Educational Support or DANTES has credit by exam tests known as DANTES Subject Standardized Tests (DSST). They were initially produced to ensure that the U.S. Military’s enlisted soldiers, mariners, airmen and Marine Corps could earn college credit while serving on active duty in locations with no traditional schools. Prior to the internet, service people needed to depend on limited on-base educational possibilities. Frequent alterations in duty stations managed to be tricky to establish residency. The DSSTs assisted to fix this issue by enabling military students to accelerate their degree programs by generating college credit by showing their understanding via testing.

After DANTES sub-contracted the DSST program to Prometric, the DSST grew to become open to non-military personnel. These exams are pretty similar to the College Level Examination Program or CLEP and they’re recognized by many schools for credit provided the minimum cutoff score is accomplished. Like the CLEP program, the majority of the exams cover courses normally trained in the newcomer and sophomore level. This allows students to try out of huge sections of their first couple of years of college.

Students desiring to make use of the DSST program should consult the Prometric web site to find the position of the nearest testing site. The price for every DSST is $80.00. However, many schools and native testing sites frequently charge a nearby fee of $15 to $25. Each examination provides the examinee the chance to earn three credit hours at traditional schools and colleges provided the examinee has accomplished an appropriate score. Each test includes a score, established with a formal validating procedure that fits to some passing grade. One part of the DSST that’s not the same as the CLEP examination is the fact that DSST scores happen to be scaled. Scores over the passing score are qualified for letter grades of B along with A when the college or university takes part for that manner. One prominent distance education college, Excelsior College, does participate and enables students to build up a GPA through testing.