Placement Testing and Exams

Placement exams are offered three times a year: summer, fall, and spring.

The full array of placement exams are offered in the summer; a small subset of the departments and programs that offer summer placement exams also offers fall and spring placement exams.

Therefore, students seeking a placement for the coming academic year are advised to take a summer placement exam.

Summer online placement exams open at 9 a.m. on July 1, 2024, and close at noon on July 31, 2024. 

The Placement Exam and Information  page on the the Yale College Website is the clearing house for placement exam information, including who should take the exams, where to find them, and how results are delivered.

Separately, some information about summer online language placement exams is also available on the Center for Language Studies’ website, and many departments post information on their websites.

Do I Need to Take a Placement Exam: Rules of Thumb for First-year Students

  • Take the placement exam in any field in which you plan to take a course during your first year at Yale
  • Take the biology, chemistry, and math placement exams if you are planning to apply to medical school or major in any of the biological sciences, chemistry, or related fields in engineering. 

  • Take a placement exam, if offered, in any language you’ve already studied in high school or in which you have some proficiency

  • Skip the placement exams for fields in which you won’t take a course during your first year at Yale

    • If you decide to study in those fields during your second year here, you can take a placement test next summer.  Are you afraid you’ll be rusty?  Even so, that will be a more accurate placement than one provided by a year-old placement test
    • What if you change your mind and wish to take a course during spring term?  A small number of departments offer placement exams at the end of each fall term, ahead of registration for spring-term courses, but it’s risky to rely on a specific exam being offered in the fall. The better course of action is to take advantage of the summer placement exam period.

Accommodations
Students with documented disabilities may request accommodations for placement testing through the Student Accessibility Services office. Please contact the SAS office through the online registration form to submit your request at least one week before your placement test.