Enrollment in Advanced Courses and Acceleration Credit
Enrollment in an advanced course is permitted any freshman whose academic preparation has anticipated the main content of the prerequisite course or courses in that subject in Yale College. All students are encouraged, indeed, expected, to place themselves in the courses most appropriate to their preparation. At the same time, any student seeking to enroll in an advanced course should expect to furnish proof of being ready to continue work at an advanced level. Most students present good or excellent scores on such recognized, nationally administered, standardized tests as the Advanced Placement, SAT II Subject, International Baccalaureate, or GCE A-levels. Some students—for example, native speakers of foreign languages or students who have studied languages or other subjects independently—may not have taken such tests, but should still expect to establish their qualifications by taking a departmental placement examination (where one is available), or by speaking with the director of undergraduate studies or an instructor.
Placement in an advanced course does not award more than normal credit or reduce the total number of credits required for graduation. Successfully completing certain advanced courses during freshman year may award acceleration credits, or may allow students to skip some, or even all, prerequisite courses in certain majors (though may not be used to reduce the number of required courses in any major). Interested freshmen should consult the Freshman Handbook, and then seek advice from the appropriate director of undergraduate studies or departmental representative.
An acceleration credit is the equivalent of one course credit that may be applied to the 36-course-credit requirement for the bachelor's degree only by students who are permitted to accelerate their progress toward graduation, that is, to complete the requirements of the bachelor's degree in fewer than eight terms. The rules governing how acceleration credits may be used to reduce the number of terms required for the bachelor's degree are complex and strictly enforced. Students seeking to accelerate should take special care to familiarize themselves with appendix A of the Freshman Handbook.
For the Class of 2008, acceleration credits may not be employed to meet any distributional requirement, except for the foreign language requirement and the distributional requirement for the first two years. For the Class of 2009 and subsequent classes, acceleration credits may not be employed to meet the distributional requirements for the freshman, sophomore, or junior years, or the distributional requirements for the bachelor's degree, including the foreign language requirement.
Acceleration credits may be acquired in two ways:
1. On entrance: Freshmen who have scored 4 or 5 on an Advanced Placement test of the College Board will in many subjects be awarded two acceleration credits at matriculation. See "Criteria for the Award of Acceleration Credit" in this section. Similarly, for subjects in which acceleration credits are awarded for specified scores on Advanced Placement tests, freshmen may be awarded the same number of acceleration credits for scores of 6 or 7 on higher-level International Baccalaureate examinations or for scores of B or A on the General Certificate of Education (GCE) A-level examinations. Students who have taken such examinations, or such established national examinations as the German Abitur or the French Baccalauréat, should bring the fact to the attention of their residential college deans and submit copies of their scores to the Registrar's Office. For a score on a test to result in the award of acceleration credit, that test must have been taken while the student was enrolled in secondary school.
2. At Yale: Students may be granted acceleration credit in some subjects at the end of freshman year if during the year they successfully complete an appropriate advanced course in that subject. Such acceleration credit is in addition to the course credit earned, but is not in addition to acceleration credit already granted in that subject on the basis of an Advanced Placement test. Thus, for example, a freshman eligible to take ENGL 125 who has not received acceleration credits in English but who completes both terms of ENGL 125 with a grade of B or above receives course credit for ENGL 125 as well as two acceleration credits in English. See "Criteria for the Award of Acceleration Credit" in this section.
In order to be awarded acceleration credit on the basis of advanced course work completed at Yale, the student must earn a grade of B or above in the course stipulated below during the freshman year. Other grades, including the mark of CR on the Credit/D/Fail option, will not yield acceleration credit. Acceleration credit cannot be awarded upon completion of advanced courses after a student's first two terms of enrollment in Yale College.
In some subjects, such as economics, a high score on the Advanced Placement test does not in itself award acceleration credits. But the Advanced Placement test score may qualify students to enroll in intermediate-level courses, by which they may earn acceleration credits during freshman year. The chart below gives the acceleration criteria for each department.
Yale does not award course credit to students who took college courses while they were enrolled in secondary school. (Courses taken in Yale College or Yale Summer Session are exceptions.) However, a student who has taken such a course may be able to complete satisfactorily an advanced course in that subject during the freshman year at Yale and thus receive acceleration credit on that basis.
A student expecting acceleration credits must select courses with particular care throughout his or her years at Yale, because acceleration credits in a subject will be forfeited if a student takes a course that duplicates or is the equivalent of the work for which the acceleration credits are granted. Acceleration credit is usually forfeited if a student completes any course with a lower number than the lowest-numbered course earning acceleration credit in the subject. For specific information on the courses that result in the forfeit of acceleration credit, see the chart under "Criteria for the Award of Acceleration Credit" in this section.
Two is the maximum number of acceleration credits that may be earned in any subject, whether those credits are earned on matriculation or through course work at Yale.
