Bad Review for WGU: Dishonest, Incompetent, and Unreliable

[Merlin]

I have been told that graduate schools also look at the grades of the courses themselves that I took. Although WGU does give a 3.0 GPA I heard that the course credits themselves are still ungraded and will just be listed as pass/fail, and that graded courses are prefered over pass/fail. Is this true for all graduate schools?

The WGU transcripts have 5 possible marks for each class: Pass, Not Passed, Requirement Satisfied, Transfer, or Withdrawn. It specifically states that any course that is marked as Pass should be assessed with a grade equivalent to B or higher (3.0 or higher in a 4.0 scale). Ultimately it is up to the destination college as to what they will accept and won't accept, but the transcript suggests each WGU course carries a grade no less than a B (3.0) and it could be treated as high as an A depending on how generous the intake school is. It is best to assume the minimum of 3.0 to be safe though. We know that schools that require a minimum undergrad GPA of 3.5 have admitted WGU students though, so your mileage may vary.

When people talk about how graded courses are preferred over pass/fail courses on this forum, what they usually mean to say is that regionally accredited courses are preferred over alternative credit courses. This means that if you're taking courses that are prerequisites for a graduate program, or that are considered part of the degree core for a degree that is required to meet admissions requirements, you want to make sure that as many of those courses are from a RA college rather than from alt. credit providers like Straighterline or Study.com.

The pass or fail nature of a course is less important than whether the school will accept the course at all. Many (most?) grad schools don't recognize ACE credits at all. If their school does, they probably only recognize a small number of courses (CLEP mainly). So if you're using alt. credit options to meet those requirements, you may be denied admission based on that, not because the courses are pass/fail. There are some big-name schools out there (Brown University for example) that use a pass/fail grading system. Their students are not denied entry to grad programs on that basis.

A lot of colleges are considering moving to pass/fail grading systems during the pandemic, so it may be common for more people soon.

Since I am also interested in PhD programs, what would you suggest that I do after I get my bachelor's degree in order to increase my chances of getting into a PhD program and obtain the kind of background that I need to apply to such a program?

The best thing to do is to figure out what grad school you want to get into, then work backward from there to figure out what you need to have the best chance of entry. So if you find that you need to have a specific degree, then you want to make sure you get that degree. If the school has specific pre-requisite courses, you want to make sure you take those courses. While doing so, try to maximize the number of core or pre-requisite courses that come from a RA college or university. If you need a certain number of academic recommendations, look for those while taking the RA courses. If you need research experience, try to find courses that have research-focused labs, etc. while taking those RA courses.

As a blanket rule, I'd suggest that for people who are serious about getting into a good grad school, they should only consider alt. credit options for their GenEd requirements (the first 60 credits of a traditional bachelor's degree). Everything else (the latter 60 credits) should come from an RA college or university.

Have you found any programs additional to these that I can add to my list? Are you thinking particularly of certain programs at this point?

Most recently I have been looking at UK schools. I'm pretty sure if I end up doing a Ph.D., it will be a UK program. But there are a few US schools on my list as well. The US schools on my list are mostly business schools though (for my backup of doing a DBA or Ph.D. in Leadership) since the bulk of US universities only want full-time Ph.D. students.

If I were to consider full-time programs, I'd probably look at more US options (local ones anyway) so I could earn grants, fellowships, or assistantships to cover a portion of my financial costs.

If I had study.com computer science credits instead of WGU's would I be able to have a higher GPA?

You get no GPA at all from alt. credit providers. Those come in as "requirement met" rather than "transfer" and are generally not included when calculating GPA at most schools. Both because they are non-credit courses, and because they are not issued by RA colleges.

If you need a GPA, you are better off getting your credits from WGU than to get them from a non-accredited credit provider like Straighterline or Study.com. Those credits are amazing deals if you're just looking to complete a degree and don't care about getting into a competitive grad school. But for people who aim to pursue graduate degrees, they are better off limiting the number of non-traditional courses. This is actually one of the reasons I am considering going back to get a second bachelor's degree, so I can earn RA credits.

That said, I have heard rumors that SL and SDC credits show grades on the WGU transcript now, so it could theoretically boost your overall GPA by having them. I don't think a grad school would be fooled though.