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Student Orientation, Advising and Registration

There are several Registration Days offered for new incoming students throughout the year where new students have the opportunity to schedule their semester classes, called SOAR (Student Orientation, Advising and Registration). View a PDF of the 2008 SOAR Brochure online.

To ensure that you are placed in appropriate courses, you will be required to take three or four placement exams prior to scheduling classes for the fall semester. All new AU students, including freshmen and transfer students, are required to take these exams. More information on each of these exams is available at AccessAU.

Math, English, and foreign language placement exams will be given on campus during your SOAR weekend. A speech communication exam is administered online and should be completed one week prior to your SOAR weekend so results can be processed before class registration. If you are not able to complete the online speech exam before SOAR weekend, you will have opportunity to do so during SOAR, but the results will not be available for registration at that time.

When you’re ready to take the online speech exam, go to AccessAU and click the link to the speech exam. Your AU ID number is required for the login process. If you don’t know your ID, you may obtain it on the same Web page by entering your Social Security Number in the form provided.

Placement Test Information:

Anderson University requires all students to enroll in a general speech class, Introduction to Speech Communication (SPCH 1000). This course is designed to give students the skills they need to be effective communicators. Some students may already have adequate experience and knowledge of speech communication to waive the required course.

The 50-question speech communication placement exam, which is administered online, is designed to identify whether a student has gained the knowledge necessary to waive the required course. Students who successfully complete this first step of the waiver process will be asked at a later date to complete step two, which consists of presenting a speech to Department of Communication faculty and participating in a brief interview.

The math placement exam determines whether a student must enroll in a basic algebra course before pursuing classes in the Mathematical Sciences Concentration of the Liberal Arts Program. This exam will be administered during your SOAR experience. You will have about 50 minutes to complete the 35-question, multiple-choice exam, comparable to the level of first-year high school algebra. Calculators are not permitted. It will be to your advantage to review your knowledge of algebra and arithmetic prior to the exam.

View sample Math placement exam questions.

The purpose of the English placement exam is to assess your writing skills in order to enroll you in the writing course that best meets your needs. You will be asked an essay question and will have 50 minutes to write a two to three-page response that includes a thesis (main idea) and reasons and examples to support it. Bring a blue or black ink pen and a dictionary. Paper will be provided. Your essay will be read and evaluated based on organization, paragraph and sentence structure, grammatical usage, spelling, and punctuation.

Click here for more information about English Placement Exams.

The Liberal Arts Curriculum at Anderson University requires that all students reach proficiency in a foreign language at the 1020 level. Placement in foreign language is based on high school transcripts and/or a placement exam process, as follows:

• Students who have completed two years or less of French, German, or Spanish in high school will be placed at the 1010 level.
• Students who have completed three years of French, German, or Spanish in high school will be placed at the 1020 level.
• Students who have completed four or more years of French, German, or Spanish in high school must take the foreign language placement exam during SOAR.
• All placements will be evaluated by the Department of Modern Foreign Languages during the first two weeks of classes. Adjustments will be made if necessary.

Students who are native speakers of a language other than English may complete this requirement by taking a course in American History, in addition to other required history courses. Students should consult with their advisers to determine which courses to take to fulfill the requirements of the Liberal Arts Curriculum.