Bad news, Everybody!

[alix]

I agree with the person who brought up that this might be due to acceditation. (That and ETS has outright said that they don't like their tests being used as a credit evaluation source.)

I didn't know that ETS made a statement like that -- that would be a really good reason to change policy!

I do worry that my graduate school might not like that Excelsior granted credits based on GRE score. I don't know if that has ever happened to anyone, though. (My graduate school of choice is in the California State university system.)

[TMW2010]

I didn't know that ETS made a statement like that -- that would be a really good reason to change policy!

I do worry that my graduate school might not like that Excelsior granted credits based on GRE score. I don't know if that has ever happened to anyone, though. (My graduate school of choice is in the California State university system.)

Bah, I the section I remembered was talking about GRE General specifically.

It's in thehttp://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/GRE/pdf/g..._guide.pdf
P7, Column 2 Under inappropriate use of scores.

They seem ok with the Subject Tests being used for award of undergrad credit 'when a rationale has been developed that discusses the relationship between the GRE Subject Test scores and the amount of credit awarded.'

But that's from the 2009-2010 book... ETS may be changing their mind on that for 2010-2011... Its all just conjecture right now.

So I'm just waiting to hear back from my advisor on Friday, since this doesn't affect me one way or the other anymore. I'll get credit for the GRE Psych I've taken, and I'm working on what I need to do to finish out the rest of the stuff I need well before the Oct GRE subject date, anyway.

[soupbone]

Well, my advisor hopes to have better information on this by Friday.

I agree with the person who brought up that this might be due to acceditation. (That and ETS has outright said that they don't like their tests being used as a credit evaluation source.)

I think that the regional accreditors might be tightening things up on them, and of course it can be worth a little more money for the school (Forcing new people to take a class that costs $900 - the new capstone - sucks, but... )

Really, the only thing that I can think is that they're trying to keep things as fluid as possible when it comes to credit acceptance while also fulfilling requirements to keep the accreditors happy.

[SIZE="5"]But if things keep happening like this, EC is going to become as burdensome (and costly) as obtaining a degree from other other major for-profits (Capella, Walden, UoP, so on.) Hopefully this isn't the result of EC taking a page from their books.[/SIZE]

That makes no sense from a business perspective but Excelsior is a school first...business second. hilarious . Since you took the GRE do you consider it as difficult as CLEP's/DSST's? I just don't see why they would single out the GRE all by itself. I hope the people here have the necessary time to get it in if they make this policy change.

[TMW2010]

That makes no sense from a business perspective but Excelsior is a school first...business second. hilarious . Since you took the GRE do you consider it as difficult as CLEP's/DSST's? I just don't see why they would single out the GRE all by itself. I hope the people here have the necessary time to get it in if they make this policy change.

For the amount of material covered in the test, I'll say yeah, I found it much harder than any CLEP I can think of... (I haven't taken any DSSTs...)

For what you get out of it (up to 30 credits) for answering 205 questions in a little less than 3 hours... That's just nothing short of massive. I went in on 4 hours of sleep with a total of about 20 hours of study, and got 56th %tile, while taking 3 classes and working full time. All for the price of 2 CLEPs... The difficulty was there, yes... The reward vs risk? Insanely good. And likely, a little too good... And the only real thing holding people back from doing it more often is the 3 dates per year that they're offered.

Over on DInfo they talked about the evolution of Excelsior's GRE Sub credit policies... I guess this is the next step of that evolution.

[Maniac Craniac]

(That and ETS has outright said that they don't like their tests being used as a credit evaluation source.)

Wow, that's news to me. On the one hand, it does make sense to me- however, I am having a hard time thinking of a specific reason why this would be so. Best I can think(a shot in the dark guess)- since so many undergraduates with minimal completion of major courses are now taking the exams, the wild success stories we see on forums like this might be a rarity. Maybe most of these people are failing miserably and causing the collective of grad school wannabes to end up with higher percentile scores?

I think that the regional accreditors might be tightening things up on them, and of course it can be worth a little more money for the school (Forcing new people to take a class that costs $900 - the new capstone - sucks, but... )

I have a feeling that this must be it, however, if it really is about accreditation, why so long before the accreditors woke up and finally said something to it? The day may come that the accreditors even put a stop to exam-only degrees, but I think that the model of allowing up to 100% of transfer credit (so long as it is either RA or ACE) is such a viable model that it should hold over time- at least I hope, for the sake of capable, experienced, earnest adults who would be held back otherwise. As for the $$... if Excelsior starts requiring more of their own courses to be taken, it stands to reason that their enrollment fees would drop and possibly offset the financial burden.

Well, it just hit me that I wrote an entire post full of suposition and conjecture, without even the slightest hint of fact to support the whims of my predictions. Sorry- but I would much rather not delete it after typing it all out

[WeAintGotNoBadges]

...For what you get out of it (up to 30 credits) for answering 205 questions in a little less than 3 hours... That's just nothing short of massive. I went in on 4 hours of sleep with a total of about 20 hours of study, and got 56th %tile, while taking 3 classes and working full time. All for the price of 2 CLEPs... The difficulty was there, yes... The reward vs risk? Insanely good. And likely, a little too good...

Hear, hear!

[BrandeX]

Is there anyone enrolled at COSC that could ask an academic advisor if there is any planned change to GRE for credit acceptance there?

[TMW2010]

Wow, that's news to me. On the one hand, it does make sense to me- however, I am having a hard time thinking of a specific reason why this would be so. Best I can think(a shot in the dark guess)- since so many undergraduates with minimal completion of major courses are now taking the exams, the wild success stories we see on forums like this might be a rarity.

Psst... Read a few more posts down...

Bah, The section I remembered was talking about GRE General specifically.

It's in thehttp://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/GRE/p...0910_guide.pdf
P7, Column 2 Under inappropriate use of scores.

They seem ok with the Subject Tests being used for award of undergrad credit 'when a rationale has been developed that discusses the relationship between the GRE Subject Test scores and the amount of credit awarded.'

[Maniac Craniac]

TMW2010: "Psst... Read a few more posts down..."

:leaving:

[Ruddigore]

I had emailed my advisor at Excelsior about the GRE results and such and got a message back this morning...

Hopefully I won't get in trouble sharing this information, but here's a line cut directly from the email conversation from my advisor about the GRE Subject tests -

'Excelsior College will no longer be accepting these examinations for credit in the very near future'

This makes me sad. Sad that EC is cutting one of the ways for students to sidestep a lot of unnecessary costs of traditional college. I wish it weren't true, but as other have pointed out GREs were not created with the intent of being used as credit (unlike DSSTs and CLEPs). I am relieved, however, since I am enrolled and my GRE Lit exam has already been approved for credit.

It would be remiss of EC, however, not to give those currently planning on it a chance to use GREs as undergrad credit. Perhaps they'll allow those enrolling before the change to take advantage of GRE Subject Tests.

And let me put in a good word for those taking GREs: These tests are tough. Taking the Literature in English GRE is definitely the most difficult academic endeavor I've engaged in thus far. Most people who sit for GREs have sat through years of classes on the subject -- and many don't score as well as you folks. Keep up the good work whatever EC has to say on the matter!