The following links provide placement information for those subject areas that require some action before the start of the fall term. Additional information is provided below; on the related departmental websites; and, for languages, on the Center for Language Study website.
All exams open at 9:00 a.m. ET on July 1, and close at 12:00 p.m. (noon) ET on July 29.
Placement exams ensure that your Yale courses are at the appropriate level.
How many and which placement exams should you take? The simple answer is that you should only take placement exams in subjects that you’ve studied before and that you’re likely to take in your first year at Yale (most placement exams have a one-year “expiration date” and the results won’t be valid after your first year).
There’s no need to register for a placement exam. You may take them at any time, up until the close date of July 29 at 12:00 p.m. (noon)
As far as language placement exams are concerned, no placement exam is required if you plan to begin a new language at Yale: in that case, you simply register for the “L1” level of the course in August and show up on the first day of classes (for an explanation of Yale’s “L” levels, see https://cls.yale.edu/students/placement-testing).
Any student with previous study of a non-English language is advised to take the placement exam in that language, especially if planning to continue study of that language at Yale.
If, after you receive your placement exam results in early August — that is, if you first determine that you need or want to take a placement exam — and you’re unhappy with the result, whether too high or too low, you may discuss your result with the contact person listed in each entry below.