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:
- 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).
- 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.
