GED as a Placement Alternative

MEMORANDUM

TO:                   Dr. Brown and Dr. Rai

SUBJECT:         GED as a Placement Alternative

FROM:             Kimberly B. Kelley

DATE:              May 7, 2018

CC:                   CAPDI Members

In 2017, the English and math subgroups on Assessment and Placement recommended to the Chief Academic Officers of the Maryland Association of Community Colleges (MACC) that the GED be added as a placement option. While the GED has traditionally been known primarily as a high school equivalency test, the new version of the test has been aligned to correspond to the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). At that time, the English subgroup of MACC made this recommendation based on the Language Arts score of the GED as it is the applicable section which corresponds to the verbal/English sections of the ACCUPLACER, SAT, and ACT.  Likewise, the math subgroup made this recommendation based on the Mathematical Reasoning score of the GED and similar correspondence.  Montgomery College’s Assessment Director, who is serving on CAPDI, also recommended that the GED be accepted as an alternative placement tool in the fall, 2017.  CAPDI members reviewed the test, and whether it was being used as our sister institutions in the State of Maryland for placement purposes. 

After significant analysis, CAPDI has determined that the GED is an effective alternative method of placement and will provide a pathway for students who begin their academic work in Workforce Development and Continuing Education (WD&CE) to transition to for-credit programs at the College more easily.  Adopting the GED will also help to achieve the goals of the Academic and Student Master Plans to recruit, retain, and graduate more students and create pathways from non-credit to credit programs.  As a result, CAPDI is formally recommending that the GED be implemented as a placement alternative using the following criteria to determine whether a student is college ready:

1. Students who present with a score of 165 or higher in the Reasoning Through Language Arts Section are eligible to be placed into ENGL 101/A (NOTE: The score range for this section of GED is 100-200).
2. Students who present with a score of 165 or higher in the Mathematical Reasoning Section are eligible to be placed into MATH 117 or MATH 120 (NOTE: The score range for this section of GED is 100-200).

 CAPDI has also learned that the College Board supports this placement alternative and several of our sister institutions currently accept the GED for placement.  Further, in the instances where the GED is used for placement, student success has been equivalent to students who come directly from high school.

Please let me know if you have any questions or need further clarification.  We appreciate your consideration of this request.

Thank you.