4 Psychology Courses Needed

[Julie S.]

Hello! My friend already holds a BA degree, but needs 4 psychology courses to apply for a Master's program in Art Therapy.  Intro to Psych and Abnormal Psych are required; the other two can be electives. No UL requirements, all can be LL if desired. My friend is an ESL user, but her English is pretty good. She can become confused if wording is not easily clear and sometimes her written grammar needs editing. She is a serious student, in her 40's with teenage kids and willing to put in a strong effort, but I want to give her options that will fit her needs best.

I suggested she start with Into to Psych on Sophia.  Her endpoint B&M will not accept NCCRS (rules out Coopersmith), so it seems her only choice for Abnormal Psych is SDC. However, having never used SDC, I'm a little confused as to which course she needs to access. There are 87 Psych choices on SDC! But seems some are for the same class or ??? I'm assuming Psych 106 is what she needs - are the ones that say Tutoring or Help just extra resources? 

For the 2 elective Psych courses, what do you suggest? Life Span Development on SL? Or better to do them at SDC? If at SCD, which courses do you think would be most accessible for an ESL user? She would like to complete them fairly quickly.

Thank you once again for all your knowledgeable wisdom and help!

Julie

[bjcheung77]

If the institution your friend is going to accepts ACE recommended credits, then Sophia.org/Study.com combo would be best. Your best options are to just randomly pretend you're going to COSC, Excelsior, TESU and see what courses are available for transfer to these schools for Psychology and copy/paste them down to a spreadsheet. Then see if that B&M school is a partner, if they are, look directly for that schools transfer...

Another option is to take Regionally Accredited exams versus doing ACE or CLEP, as there are some CLEP psychology exams and some ACE courses, but if the institution doesn't take ACE/CLEP, they may take external exams from Excelsior and TESU. I recommend comparing the pricing and exam requirements for both Excelsior's UEXCElS and TESU's TECEPS. There are a few options to select from...

You need to note the pricing differences for each exam as some are LL and UL, the prices don't necessarily relate to LL/UL for Excelsior, it's random for them. Some they charge $110, others it's $355! TESU is $50/credit LL, $75/UL, so it's $150LL/$225UL each exam.
Excelsior Link: https://www.excelsior.edu/exams/choose-your-exam/
TESU Link: https://www2.tesu.edu/listalltecep.php

[Julie S.]

bjcheung77: The B&M does accept ACE as well as CLEP and Excelsior. They are pretty open to which electives are selected. I'm wondering if perhaps the course might be easier than the exam for an ESL user? Or do you think it's vice versa?

[jsh1138]

Study.com is going to be your best source of Psych credits, I think

[Julie S.]

Thanks jsh1138. Any recommendations as to which SDC courses to choose?

[rachel83az]

Psychology 106: Abnormal Psychology and/or Psychology 306: Advanced Abnormal Psychology are the ones you want on SDC. These are at https://study.com/academy/course/abnormal-psych.html and https://study.com/academy/course/psychol...ology.html

When searching on SDC, make sure that you click on "courses" and not on lessons or top results. The icon in the search results needs to be a blue ribbon and not a rectangle with a "play" icon or a stack of rectangles with a play icon. Because you get 2 classes in a month with SDC, I would highly recommend doing at least 2 of the courses on SDC. But make sure that your friend's choice of schools will accept the SDC courses. Not all schools will accept all SDC courses. They might or might not count as prerequisites for a psych program.

If it turns out that they don't accept the SDC courses for some reason, your friend could take UExcel exams. These are graded exams from Excelsior College that are possibly more likely to be accepted by most schools. Abnormal Psych would be $355 + proctoring fees. They also have Intro to Psychology + 3 other Psych exams for $110 each + proctoring fees.

[bjcheung77]

I second the choice for Study.com to get the Psychology credits, as the quizzes already add up to at least 33% to 66% of the grade, it'll be easier to pass for ESL students. They can just take 4 psychology courses from them...

However, having said that, CLEP/ModernStates is free and they have exactly 3 exams she can take, she just might want to do this instead and see if it would work for her:
Human Growth & Development
Introduction to Educational Psychology
Introductory of Psychology

[ss20ts]

bjcheung77: The B&M does accept ACE as well as CLEP and Excelsior. They are pretty open to which electives are selected. I'm wondering if perhaps the course might be easier than the exam for an ESL user? Or do you think it's vice versa?

I believe the courses on Study.com will be easier than studying for CLEP or Excelsior exams for someone who is ESL. With the courses, they can go at their own pace. They can watch something over and over and use closed captioning if necessary. They can read the lecture over and over and use a text to voice app if necessary. The exams are timed so that could be an issue for someone who is ESL. I think the classes would be less stressful and they won't have to worry about not understanding or misunderstanding something on the exam. Those exams you're on your own to study for. Study.com is set up with readings and videos so it's like a class lecture. 

They also work on their ESL skills watching the videos and doing the reading. The videos may help with pronunciation of some words they may struggle with. I'm not ESL, but I will sit there and listen to videos to learn how to pronounce things I don't know over and over. I had to do that last week when I was learning about the movement of air in one of my classes. So much technical jargon that I had no idea how to pronounce. I don't want to sound like a moron once I'm working in my new industry so I watch videos to make sure I'm pronouncing things correctly.

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Psychology 106: Abnormal Psychology and/or Psychology 306: Advanced Abnormal Psychology are the ones you want on SDC. These are at https://study.com/academy/course/abnormal-psych.html and https://study.com/academy/course/psychol...ology.html

When searching on SDC, make sure that you click on "courses" and not on lessons or top results. The icon in the search results needs to be a blue ribbon and not a rectangle with a "play" icon or a stack of rectangles with a play icon. Because you get 2 classes in a month with SDC, I would highly recommend doing at least 2 of the courses on SDC. But make sure that your friend's choice of schools will accept the SDC courses. Not all schools will accept all SDC courses. They might or might not count as prerequisites for a psych program.

If it turns out that they don't accept the SDC courses for some reason, your friend could take UExcel exams. These are graded exams from Excelsior College that are possibly more likely to be accepted by most schools. Abnormal Psych would be $355 + proctoring fees. They also have Intro to Psychology + 3 other Psych exams for $110 each + proctoring fees.

When you're on the webpage, on the top, click on courses then psychology. This will open a new webpage. Scroll down. On the left hand side there will be a boxes that says Goals. In that box, click on Transferable Credit and then click on Online College Credit. This will then show you only the classes available for credit. There's a lot of other study material on Study.com. They have 17 courses shown.

[Julie S.]

rachel83az: Thanks for the clarification on the blue ribbon! I see it now. I'm assuming because they accept ACE, they will take SDC as long as it's on Credly.

bjcheung77: I wasn't thinking about Modern States - thanks for the reminder! I'll give her both options. Introductory Psych would duplicate the Sophia course I assume.

Anybody else: any specific SDC Psych courses you have taken that you would or would not recommend? Thanks!

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ss20ts: Thank you for your feedback on SDC for ESL users and for the info on using the SDC site to find credit bearing courses!

[Ideas]

Any of these would be the easiest. I'd go with whatever she already has more knowledge about. Most people have picked up knowledge about some of these.

Psychology 102: Educational Psychology
Psychology 103: Human Growth and Development
Psychology 104: Social Psychology
Psychology 107: Life Span Developmental Psychology
Psychology 108: Psychology of Adulthood and Aging