Home > About (Purpose of the Placement Assessment)

Purpose of the Placement Assessment

About Placement Assessment: Introduction


Why do I need to be assessed?

Tell me more about...

Assessment & Placement

As part of DePaul University's commitment to personalism as well as to teaching, all new students meet individually with an academic advisor before they even begin their first classes.  Your first advising meeting will take place during your Premiere DePaul or Transfer Transition program. Your advisor will discuss your transcripts, your placement scores, and help you register for your first classes.  

DePaul's Assessment and Placement programs are designed to direct you to the math and writing courses for which you are best prepared.  Your placement is based on our assessment of your standardized test scores (ACT, SAT, AP, for example), your prior academic work, and our math and writing assessments.  No single factor alone determines your placement.  

The Mathematics Assessment is a series of exercises in computational skills, basic algebra, and college algebra.  The Writing Assessment is an essay on an assigned topic.  Your results are combined with the rest of your academic profile to generate placement.  To learn more about academic profiles, please click here.

The Online Option

As a newly-admitted, degree-seeking undergraduate student at DePaul, you should have registered with the Office of Academic Enhancement for the Premier DePaul or Transfer Transition program linked to this online assessment option.  By the second week of June, you will have received a mailing from the Assessment Center with your Login Name and Password, which will grant you access to both the Online Writing Assessment Website and the Online Mathematics Assessment Website. You cannot take this online option unless you have registered for the companion orientation program.

For a schedule of online Assessments, please click here.

Students interested in the Modern Languages Assessments, please click here.

Online versus Onsite

The content of the online math assessments is very similar to the onsite version.  One major difference between the two assessments (other than location) is that students taking the online option will be required to take all five parts of the math assessment, while onsite participants may be exempt from taking some or all of the math or writing assessments. 

The online and onsite writing assessments differ, as well.  Although they write essentially the same assignments, students who take the online writing assessments have a four-day window to complete their assessments, and they can compose their essays at their own pace, using their favorite word processor, and at a place of their own choosing.  Students who take their writing assessments onsite have 50 minutes to write their essay, using paper and pencil, and they compose assignment during their orientation program along with other new students in a large auditorium, at a desk, using pen and paper, and within 50 minutes.

The Onsite Option (Traditional Paper and Pencil)

Students who are not participating in the online option will take their placement assessments (including modern language assessments during their orientation program onsite (on DePaul University's Lincoln Park Campus).

Honesty Policy

As a newly-admitted student, you also are responsible for honoring the University's Code of Conduct.  The work you submit must be in every sense your own efforts, your own work.  You must not have someone help you answer questions, for example, because the assessment will not reflect your own efforts.  You must not copy material written by someone else in your placement essay, for you would not be submitting your own work.  In submitting your Math and Writing Assessments online, you will be testifying that you have done the work yourself and that you have not received unauthorized help.