Credit-by-Exam for 102

Credit-by-exam dates for summer/fall semesters are February 1 – August 1. Credit-by-exam dates for spring semesters are October 1 - December 1. Any portfolio submitted outside these date ranges will not be reviewed until the subsequent review period.

The credit-by-exam process requires that students submit a portfolio of essays to determine whether they should receive credit for ENG 102, the second and final course in the first-year writing sequence. Students' portfolios must clearly show proficiency in the learning outcomes for the English 102 for credit to be granted.

All currently enrolled, degree-seeking students whose ACT or SAT scores place them in ENG 102 or who have completed ENG 101, or similar course and want earn ENG 102 credit without taking a course are eligible to take the ENG 102 credit-by-exam.

Your credit-by-exam portfolio will be processed in approximately two-to-three weeks, although this may vary depending on the time of year and does not include the processing time with Admissions and Records (see below).

Important notes:

  • Students may only participate in the credit-by-exam process one time. Additional submissions will not be considered.
  • If any work in a portfolio is plagiarized, your credit-by-exam attempt will be failed and your fee will not be refunded. In addition, your work and evidence of plagiarism will be kept on file and a copy will be sent to the Office of Student Conduct.

Submission instructions

  1. Email MyNevada to apply for credit-by-exam. Admissions and Records, the student’s advisor, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and the Director of Core Writing will review your eligibility for the course and whether a credit by exam is appropriate. Once approved, you will receive an email with additional instructions for the credit-by-exam process as well as how to pay the $25 fee. Note: This process can take two or more weeks so be sure to initiate it well in advance of the submission deadline.
  2. Review the Portfolio Guide for tips and examples.
  3. Choose the writing that you will include in your portfolio. Please include three-to-four essays, preferably written for classes in the last two years, that represent your writing experiences and abilities.
  4. Plan, draft and revise a cover letter. Your letter should include:
    1. Your full name, NSHE ID number and an email address we can use to reach you
    2. A statement explaining why you should be placed differently than your test scores suggest
    3. The bulk of your letter should make specific references to how your writing samples demonstrate how you have met or exceeded the student learning outcomes of English 101, available on the core writing course descriptions page.
    4. The cover letter is the most important part of your portfolio, so take care to plan your ideas, seek feedback, and revise. Please look at these excerpts with evaluator feedback from portfolio cover letters submitted to our credit-by-exam program. While these letters are a bit different from those seeking placement into 102 (for instance, they reference the 102 outcomes instead of the 101 outcomes), they provide some good detail about what portfolio evaluators are looking for in these cover letters.
  5. Combine your cover letter and writing samples into one PDF file with the filename formatted as Last Name_Placement_Portfolio.pdf. Microsoft has instructions for saving a Word document as a PDF file. Please make sure that each essay and each page is clearly labeled so that readers will know where each essay begins and ends.
  6. Submit your portfolio via the Portfolio Submission Survey.
  7. Your portfolio will be read by the Core Writing Program’s portfolio readers and you will receive the results via email of your portfolio placement. If you have any questions about the status of your submission, email Isis Lopez Aguilar, the first-year writing placement coordinator.

Note: due to FERPA regulations, we can only communicate portfolio results to the student in question. Any other person, unless that person is a parent and the student is a minor, must provide a signed privacy waiver (available from Admissions and Records) before the Core Writing Program can communicate the student's placement results or any other academic information.