Are there any ACE grad classes?

[Merlin]

Also, failing an OA is a big deal and will end your ability to accelerate. Any time you fail an exam the teachers are required to create a mandatory study plan for you that will include a lot of extra reading, quizzes, and other prep material that will generally take you 1-2 weeks to complete. If you fail again, the amount of work increases. After a fourth failure, the only way you can get a retest is with permission from the Dean of the college you're in. If you fail again, you're done and won't be able to complete that degree program

I've joined some of the Facebook groups and people have mentioned taking the re-take the following day, so there seems to be some leeway:

This is how one student explained it:

I failed by a small margin and I was able to complete the portion of the study guide I needed to within hours of receiving it and took a little test and felt ready. It was also the last 2 weeks of my term and I told them I needed to get it done ASAP. Remember, you pay for this. Be your own advocate and express your needs.

For every positive story like the one you quote above I am sure I can find several posts where people are complaining about how they got stuck with a retest plan that took them a week or more to complete.

What I quoted above is the standard policy, but the retest requirements are determined by a course instructor. When you fail an exam, you're required to set up an appointment with a CI. During that conversation, the CI will determine what they feel you need to do in order to successfully complete the exam. If you can convince them that you know the material and only missed the cut score by a question or two because you were having a bad day, they may be lenient and allow you to retake it immediately. On the other hand, they may also feel that you need more instruction anyway, especially if the cut score is like 65 or something.

Either way, my point is that you don't want to just aim for the cut score, you want to do well enough that you are (1) learning the material (since it will come back up during the capstone) and (2) you give yourself enough buffer room on the exam that you're not at risk of potentially failing the exam to avoid a retest plan. I have seen multiple posts on Facebook and Reddit forums from people who ended up being forced to pay for an additional term because they were derailed by a failed OA.

In any case, I always worry more about OA's than I do about PA's since OA's have more of an impact on your ability to complete a degree and the time it takes to do so. So I always make sure I have a solid grasp of the OA material.