AUP’s core curriculum program, which serves as the foundation of your academic experience, requires that you demonstrate a high degree of competence in Mathematics and spoken and written French and English. You may be asked to take placement exams in order to determine the appropriate course level for you. It is possible that you may test out of the basic core curriculum requirements for Math and French, but may still wish to select courses from these disciplines depending upon your interests and major.
FRENCH PLACEMENT
Since you will be living and studying in Paris, you do not want to miss the opportunity to develop or perfect your skills in French. French is required as part of AUP’s core curriculum and we suggest that you begin your French experience at AUP in your first semester. The French placement test is available on line by logging in and clicking on 'Complete the Appropriate Placement Test' in your checklist. If you are a beginner please let us know and we will immediately place you in the correct class. Otherwise your placement test result will determine your level of French. If your test results place you in level 3, 4, 5 or above, you will have met your French core curriculum requirements. Yet depending upon your future major or your interests in an international career, we encourage you to deepen your knowledge of French.
ENGLISH PLACEMENT
In your English courses, you will acquire advanced skills necessary for effective academic writing. You will study and learn to write about important works of world literature, philosophy and criticism across a wide range of genres and time periods.
If you are an entering first-year and cannot be pre-placed into the appropriate English course level with the help of SAT or ACT scores, you will be required to take the English placement exam online before you arrive at AUP for Orientation..
If you are a transfer student and you are not transferring with equivalencies of EN1010 and EN2020, you will be required to take the English placement exam online before Orientation to confirm that you have attained a level of English writing proficiency sufficient for upper-level coursework at AUP. If you are a transfer student with SAT or ACT scores but without equivalencies of EN1010 or EN2020, you will be required to take the placement exam as these scores are probably not recent.
MATHEMATICS WAIVER & PLACEMENT
All degree-seeking students must satisfy the Quantitative Reasoning (math) requirement as part of the core curriculum program at AUP. The quantitative reasoning requirement may be fulfilled in one of three ways (1) take the QR(math) waiver exam before orientation and place out of the requirement (2) take and pass an approved math course at AUP, or (3) for transfer students, successfully transfer in a math course that receives a quantitative reasoning equivalency (course type CCM). Transfer students who are not certain as to how there credits will be articulated are encouraged to go ahead and take the waiver exam. The QR (math) waiver exam may only be taken once.
For students in certain majors, math courses beyond the requirements of the core curriculum may be necessary (business, economics, and computer sciences are all good examples). In these cases, students may wish to take the Algebra placement exam to se if they can bypass the Algebra pre-requisite in AUP’s math stream, and head directly into Statistics or Function with Modeling. Students may then also wish to take the Pre-Calculus placement exam to see if they can bypass the pre-calculus pre-requisite and move immediately into calculus courses. Both of these placement exams are also available before orientation online.
All exams, the QR (math) Waiver Exam, the Algebra Placement Exam, and the Pre-Calculus Placement exam are accessible to new incoming students via their pre-arrival checklist.