Lafayette College awards credit from College Board Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB), and Cambridge General Certificate of Education (GCE/A-levels) as outlined below.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Credit cannot be reviewed or awarded until official exam results/ transcripts are received directly from the testing organization. Official score reports should be sent to Lafayette College only after the student is admitted to the College; scores submitted prior to acceptance cannot be added to a prospective student/applicant record.
The Lafayette faculty determine eligible exams, score assignments, and equivalent Lafayette courses each spring. Elements of the policy – including, but not limited to, eligibility, scores, applicability, and equivalents – are not eligible for petition/exception/override.
Students are not eligible to receive both exam credit and institutional credit for the same course. If a student wishes to take a course at Lafayette for which exam credit was awarded, the student may request in writing to the Registrar’s Office that the credit for the exam be rescinded. Credit for the exam will not be restored if the student persists in the class through the add/drop period in the semester of enrollment, even in cases where the student does not successfully complete the course (i.e withdraws or fails). Note the following for exam credits which merit 2 institutional credits:
MATH 161 and 162: These courses must be taken in sequence. Students can elect to either retain / rescind credit for both courses, or retain credit for MATH 161 but rescind credit for MATH 162 in order to take the course.
Lafayette participates in the Advanced Placement examination program of the College Board. Candidates interested in receiving course credit and placement in advanced classes should take the AP examinations given in May of each year (during high school).
A – Must earn score of 4 or higher on both Microeconomics and Macroeconomics.
B – Same course. (Cannot receive credit for PHYS 111 & 131/151 and 112 & 133/152.) (Only one credit awarded in English.)
C – Satisfies the Elementary Proficiency in a Second Language requirement. (Maximum 1 credit per language.)
D – Engineering majors will not be awarded credit for PHYS 111, PHYS 112.
E – Course is not equivalent to PSYC 110, and does not meet the Natural Science requirement in the Common Course of Study.
F – Course is equivalent to an Intro Computer Science course (104 or 105 or 106), but does not meet Natural Science CCS requirement. Students are not eligible to take CS 104/105/106 if credit is earned for CS 102.
G – Course meets the Humanities requirement in the Common Course of Study.
H – Course does not meet the natural lab science requirement.
I – Course is not equivalent to either EVST 100 or GEOL 110.
J – Elective credit cannot be applied in major.
K – A student who wishes to place themselves in their first mathematics course without having credit earned in the necessary prerequisite course(s) (Mathematics 161 and/or Mathematics 162 and/or Mathematics 263) must first pass the credit exam(s) offered by the Department of Mathematics. Credit will NOT be awarded for such exams until the student has passed the subsequent course for which they have registered.
L – Students may not earn credit for both MATH 125 + MATH 161 through AP and/or department credit exams.
The official results of the higher-level (HL) examination of the International Baccalaureate are considered for academic course credit at Lafayette College. No credit is awarded for standard/subsidiary-level (SL) examinations.
2 – Satisfies the Elementary Proficiency in a Second Language requirement. (Maximum 1 credit awarded per language.)
3 – Course is equivalent to an Intro Computer Science course (104 or 105 or 106), but does not meet Natural Science requirement in the Common Course of Study. Students are not eligible to take CS 104/105/106 if credit is earned for CS102.
4 – Elective credit cannot be applied in major.
5 – Engineering majors will not be awarded credit for PHYS 111.
6 – Course is not equivalent to PSYC 110, and does not meet the Natural Science requirement in the Common Course of Study.
7 – Students awarded the full IB diploma with results of 5 or above on all higher level and subsidiary level examinations, and results of C or above on both the Theory of Knowledge course and the Extended Essay are awarded two free electives.
The Lafayette faculty determine score assignments each spring/summer. Credit is awarded based on the policy in effect the year you matriculated at Lafayette (note: some award years also have stipulations on the year you took the AP exam).
GCE A-Levels Exam Credit
GCE A-levels are reviewed on a course by course basis; however, to be considered for credit, the course must have been taken at the advanced level and only a grade of A(a)/A*(a*) will be accepted. Courses taken at the subsidiary level will not be considered regardless of grade.
CLEP Exam Credit
Lafayette College does not award credit for the CLEP examination.