BALA at Excelsior

[TorsMama]

Which Sophia courses will transfer for that BA Liberal Arts degree program? I have read their pdf catalogue and the Sophia site, and its confusing. They want to see “48 Additional Arts/Sciences” so does that not mean the courses like Business, Conflict, Intro to Tech, etc on Soohia? Also, can you overlap credits? For example, you take English on Sophia for the Written English credit, then take Analyzing Lit and College Comp CLEP for “additional arts” and it will count? What if you took biology at a university (20 yrs ago), then also take Sophia Human Biology. Will both count?

[dfrecore]

Arts & Sciences are things like Humanities, Social Sciences, Math, and Science. https://www.excelsior.edu/policy/general...uirements/

Everything else falls under "Applied Professional" credits; things like business, IT/computers, nursing, fire science, police academy, paralegal, etc. It's basically the Free Electives.

No, you cannot "overlap" credits - also known as duplicate credits. So if you take Intro to Sociology at Sophia, and then take the Sociology CLEP exam, only 1 will count.

For your particular example of English, Sophia's English Comp I & II count as the Written English requirement at EC. The A&I Lit CLEP exam is Literature, which counts as a Humanity. And they don't take the College Composition CLEP exam at all.

Biology may or may not be considered the same, depending on how they count it - I personally would not take something that you already have credit for, as it's probably duplicating (but not 100% certain).

[bjcheung77]

Just wondering, are you in NY state or something... Do you have plans at looking into COSC or even TESU, maybe even a competency based program... and is this degree for yourself or for your child... Anyways are you set for the BALA or would you rather get the BSLS. They're practically the same degree but the BSLS allows different depths or concentrations.

Essentially, the BALA at Excelsior requires more additional arts & sciences + has less free electives, the BSLS requires the opposite, lesser additional arts & sciences, etc. So, it depends if you want to have two arts & science depths or 1 arts & science depth and 1 additional applied professional depth. You may want to review the concentrations they have for each degree and see which is more for you.

[TorsMama]

Arts & Sciences are things like Humanities, Social Sciences, Math, and Science.  https://www.excelsior.edu/policy/general...uirements/

Everything else falls under "Applied Professional" credits; things like business, IT/computers, nursing, fire science, police academy, paralegal, etc.  It's basically the Free Electives.

No, you cannot "overlap" credits - also known as duplicate credits.  So if you take Intro to Sociology at Sophia, and then take the Sociology CLEP exam, only 1 will count.

For your particular example of English, Sophia's English Comp I & II count as the Written English requirement at EC. The A&I Lit CLEP exam is Literature, which counts as a Humanity.  And they don't take the College Composition CLEP exam at all.

Biology may or may not be considered the same, depending on how they count it - I personally would not take something that you already have credit for, as it's probably duplicating (but not 100% certain).

The College Board website says Excelsior accepts College Comp ? I can’t find their cbe list on their own website. Good to know about A&I Lit exam though. That one us supposed to be worth 6 credits. Sophia says “Human biology” and my bio at the school was just straight Bio 101, so maybe that can count. 

I guess I don't understand their requirements then. If it says “48 additional arts/sciences” where do the elective come in to play?

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Just wondering, are you in NY state or something... Do you have plans at looking into COSC or even TESU, maybe even a competency based program...  and is this degree for yourself or for your child...  Anyways are you set for the BALA or would you rather get the BSLS. They're practically the same degree but the BSLS allows different depths or concentrations.

Essentially, the BALA at Excelsior requires more additional arts & sciences + has less free electives, the BSLS requires the opposite, lesser additional arts & sciences, etc.  So, it depends if you want to have two arts & science depths or 1 arts & science depth and 1 additional applied professional depth.  You may want to review the concentrations they have for each degree and see which is more for you.

No, I am in Texas. I am looking at Excelsior because there is a chance they may accept some of my film degree credits whereas no other college will (I asked TESU and COSC). They are reviewing them now. I don’t really care if its a BS or BA. My goal is a bachelors as quickly and hopefully cheaply as possible. I dont even see on the BALA where they accept free electives. Their website and requirements are pretty confusing.

[dfrecore]

It's easier if you actually use their catalog to see the degree requirements. They used to have those on the website under each degree, and for whatever reason they got rid of something helpful to give you a very unhelpful look at each degree. It's terribly confusing. But the catalog is better.

Schools call things different names. So EC uses Arts & Sciences to mean liberal arts, and then Applied Professional to mean Free Electives.

Look at the BALA and the BSLA there:
The BALA is 90cr Arts & Sciences, 30cr Applied Professional, both depths in the concentration have to be Arts & Sciences
The BSLA is 60cr Arts & Sciences, 60cr Applied Professional, one depth in the concentration has to be Arts & Sciences, the other can be Applied Professional

Yes, EC will probably take your film credits, just not sure what they'll bring them in as. So it's good to get an eval of those. Just remember that your 2 depths each have to have 2 UL courses plus 3 LL courses.