Placement and Testing
Students enrolling in RCC enter with a variety of skills and academic backgrounds. In order to ensure that students have the skills and support to succeed in college-level coursework, RCC has adopted Developmental Education (DevEd) models for placement into English and math. These guidelines were established by the North Carolina Community College System in 2024 and fully implemented by RCC in the fall of 2025. Some students may be placed into a required corequisite course that provides support for ENG 111. Some students may be placed into a prerequisite math course that ensures they have the necessary foundational skills before taking a college-level math course.
Under the DevEd placement guidelines, students who graduate from an accredited high school will be placed according to their unweighted high school GPA. Students with a high school GPA lower than 2.8 may be placed into a corequisite English course and a prerequisite math course. RCC will use additional methods to place students: ACT test scores, SAT test scores, and coursework from colleges and universities. Students who do not meet the previous criteria will have the option of taking the Accuplacer placement test administered on the RCC campus.
Students with a high school GPA lower than 2.8 will have the option to take the Accuplacer placement test to demonstrate their readiness for college-level math or English. Students who complete high school equivalency or adult high school must take the Accuplacer placement test, unless waivered by other test scores.