College Readiness (Procedure 4.0230)

Purpose: 

To establish a process to ensure students’ college readiness through common placement testing; developmental courses; and the demonstration of successful mastery of the required developmental education competencies. 

1. General provisions for placement testing 
   1. For admission, first-time-in-college degree-seeking students who entered 9th grade in a Florida public school in 2003-2004 or thereafter and who earned a standard Florida high school diploma; or students who are serving as active duty members of the United States Armed Services are considered exempt and not required to test for developmental purposes. Students may request an assessment and may enroll in developmental courses if they wish. Otherwise, they may enroll in college-level-classes. 
   2. Students who do not meet the above criteria shall be tested for reading, writing, and mathematics proficiency prior to the completion of initial registration. Students earning scores less than those listed shall enroll in college developmental communication and computation instruction in the area of the deficiency. 
   3. Students who meet or exceed the following scores, and enroll in a Florida College System institution within 2 years of achieving such a score are exempt from placement testing: 
      1. Next-Generation Accuplacer Reading, 256; Writing, 253; and Quantitative Reasoning, Algebra, and Statistics (QAS)261; or 
      2. Postsecondary Education Readiness Test (PERT): Reading,106; Writing,103; and Mathematics,114; or  
      3. SAT, The College Board: Reading Test, 24; Writing and Language Test, 25; Math Test 24; or 
      4. ACT: Reading, 19; English, 17; Mathematics 19. 
   4. Students who demonstrate readiness in high school by achieving the minimum test scores on PERT, Next-Generation Accuplacer, SAT, or ACT and enroll in a Florida College System institution within 2 years of achieving such scores shall not be required to retest or enroll in remediation when admitted to any Florida College System institution. 
   5. Students whose first language is not English may be placed in college preparatory instruction prior to the required testing, if such instruction is otherwise demonstrated as being necessary. However, the student shall not be exempt from the required testing. 
2. Prior to being retested, the examinee must remediate as directed by Assessment & Testing.  
3. Provisions for additional attempts on the placement instrument
   A degree-seeking student has a maximum of three (3) attempts on the PERT or the Next-Generation Accuplacer. Requests for additional attempts must be approved by the Director of Assessment and Testing. An additional attempt can be approved under the following documented circumstances: 
   1. An emergency, beyond the student’s control, that prevents the student from beginning or completing the exam and occurs immediately before or during the second attempt; 
   2. A disruption of the testing environment that occurs during the third attempt, e.g., equipment failure, power outage, natural disaster; and, 
   3. Other testing circumstance that in the director’s determination deems the testing experience warrants an additional attempt. 
4. Student who are classified as “Non-exempt” status and who place into 2 or more development courses must also enroll and complete SLS 1101, College Success.  This rule affects any student beginning a program of study declared under the 2013 - 2014 Catalog and is inclusive of students seeking two-year degrees (A.A. and A.S.) and college-credit certificates. Students required to complete the EAP track are not required to take SLS 1101. 
5. Developmental Instruction 
   1. Students shall not enroll for more than three (3) attempts in each non-repeatable course to complete college developmental instruction. Students who withdraw from a course under major extenuating circumstances may be granted an exception. Request for an exception must go through the Registrar’s Office. 
   2. Before a student is considered to have met basic computation and communication skills requirements, the student must demonstrate successful mastery of the required developmental education competencies. Seminole State College Math and English departments conduct formative or summative assessments of the developmental education competencies to indicate student readiness for college-credit courses.