Bad news, Everybody!

[MomOfMany]

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

bump as I'd like to know as well

[Kaz]

I feel for you.

For lower level credits, CLEP will help you out a bit, and so will ALEKS (some of their courses are ACE approved). To finish it out, maybe you can check the online course catalog for Clovis Community College- they are VERY inexpensive and work out to about the same credit-for-credit cost as CLEP.

Also, Louisiana State University has some very inexpensive self-paced courses (about $80/credit, if memory serves). A bit more expensive than them would be the large list of self-paced courses from Brigham Young University ($150/credit).

Those are some ideas, however, since I'm posting from my phone, I am unable to look up their course catalogs and don't know which of these schools will have a decent selection of math courses. I can do some research for you later.

I think anyone who is in doubt should just ask Excelsior:

1) Is it true?

2) When?

3) Will enrolled students be grandfathered under the old policy (and do I need exam approval before the policy change)?

If the answers are YES, TOMORROW and NO, respectively, then you can panic. Otherwise, now might be the best time to... calm yourself... and get to the books!

Thanks! I'm already on the borderline between junior/senior with Rutgers. I have all the underclassmen credits I could use done for a math major. BYU is interesting. I'll go through their stuff soon. I've looked at LSU before and don't remember them having any upper-level credits in math.

[Kaz]

Kaz -

Have you looked at the U of Idaho outreach stuff? I know you were primarily looking for tests, but here are classes that you can take at your own pace to get done.

http://www.outreach.uidaho.edu/eo/ViewPage.aspx?pid=79

They have classes in the 300's-500's that they offer, and I think the price is about $325 per... Obviously not the quickest and cheapest way to go, but it is an option.

I was impressed with their course selection and I hadn't heard of this program before. Thanks for the find! The only thing is it says $504 per in the Fees section. But I'm keeping this one in my bookmarks anyway!

[Kaz]

If you are smart enough to pass a GRE you are smart enough to figure out how to get through this!

I slept on it and chilled-out a bit. I realized my original plans had avoidance of paying the annual student fee (their SSAF) as a lynchpin of the timing of when I was going to do this or that. I'm sure Excelsior will honour the rules that were in place when students enrolled with them. That seems to be highly consistent across institutions and programs. So an extra $400, or so, a year from now is nothing compared to losing the opportunity to utilize the GREs. So I think I'll be OK. Kinda' sucks for other people though.

[Kaz]

I'm still trying to figure out how a rumor (it's still a rumor until confirmed with an official announcement) got a few of you into panic mode. Pick up the phone and call Excelsior and simply ask everyone who will talk to you. Take a chain of command approach and ask up the ladder all the way to the Dean of your specific College if you feel it is necessary.

Honestly, I would expect a typical boilerplate response that wouldn't help one way or the other. You've never been asked, even backhandedly, to fib by your boss? Never had insider information that you had to keep to yourself? You've never known this-or-that was going to happen on a given date, but the official announcement was scheduled for a set time, so you weren't allowed to tell co-workers or customers? I've run into that more than once, on both sides of the situation. Heck, we have all this hubbub about TESC and Rutgers and my governor, and apparently the president of TESC didn't even know it was coming!

And specifically as to the "panic mode", I don't lay out every detail of my life on the internet, so I'm not going to "prove" why I might be "justified" in freakin' out. I'll just say that Excelsior allowing someone to complete the major in mathematics using the subject GRE alone is truly unique. This could have / can completely change my life for the foreseeable future.

[TMW2010]

I was impressed with their course selection and I hadn't heard of this program before. Thanks for the find! The only thing is it says $504 per in the Fees section. But I'm keeping this one in my bookmarks anyway!

Hurm... I was going by the EC course search tool which showed $325 as the total cost for the course on the course description page (for EC, that is), which is likely outdated.... Or EC might have a deal with them to get a lower course fee... But most likely the info is outdated.

Sorry about that, Kaz...

*Addendum* Hm... That's wacky.. They have two courses from Idaho listed fulfilling my Biopsychology requirement. One is shown as costing $325, and the other is $1323. :ack:

[NAP]

I received a response to my letter to the president through advising.

The college is planning to stop using GREs for credit.

I was told that if I re-enroll before July 1, 2010 I will be able to take the GREs for credit and avoid the new capstone requirement.

For those of you in the application/enrollment process, I hope you will be offered this opportunity, too. Please check with EC.

For those of you who need to apply and enroll, I do not know if 6 weeks is long enough to get all of the paperwork for the transcripts done. Please contact EC. They may be able to help you with this.

(WARNING – Be extremely careful with this thought I am sharing. – If you are 100% positive that you want to use a GRE for credit at EC, I wonder if you could apply and enroll now without sending in your transcripts to be evaluated, in order to get your academic policy date set before July 1st. Make sure that this would not forfeit those credits and that the transcripts can be sent later to add to your recorded credits for your degree. It would be a risk to have unevaluated credits and a big commitment of $1000. You would also have to be very carful not to make any decisions (like changing majors?) later that would cause a change to your academic policy date.)

Since the option of using GREs for credit is still available to some degree, I wonder what Charter Oak’s policy is going to be.

[TMW2010]

I received a response to my letter to the president through advising.

The college is planning to stop using GREs for credit.

I was told that if I re-enroll before July 1, 2010 I will be able to take the GREs for credit and avoid the new capstone requirement.

For those of you in the application/enrollment process, I hope you will be offered this opportunity, too. Please check with EC.

For those of you who need to apply and enroll, I do not know if 6 weeks is long enough to get all of the paperwork for the transcripts done. Please contact EC. They may be able to help you with this.

(WARNING – Be extremely careful with this thought I am sharing. – If you are 100% positive that you want to use a GRE for credit at EC, I wonder if you could apply and enroll now without sending in your transcripts to be evaluated, in order to get your academic policy date set before July 1st. Make sure that this would not forfeit those credits and that the transcripts can be sent later to add to your recorded credits for your degree. It would be a risk to have unevaluated credits and a big commitment of $1000. You would also have to be very carful not to make any decisions (like changing majors?) later that would cause a change to your academic policy date.)

Since the option of using GREs for credit is still available to some degree, I wonder what Charter Oak’s policy is going to be.

I'm late in getting back to post this, but I received the same info as NAP.

[wb.john]

That is a little bit of good news, at least for us. Thank you guys for gathering this information. Has anyone been able to figure out why they made this decision? Is it a matter of accreditation or otherwise?

I have had all my transcripts sent to Excelsior. Do I need to notify them of this, or will the process continue automatically?

NAP mentioned the academic policy date. When is that set? I still need to enroll and notify them that I wish to pursue a math major. Will that be when the date is set?

[Kaz]

I have had all my transcripts sent to Excelsior. Do I need to notify them of this, or will the process continue automatically?

Notify them of what? Your transcripts? The policy change?

NAP mentioned the academic policy date. When is that set? I still need to enroll and notify them that I wish to pursue a math major. Will that be when the date is set?

I have some trouble figuring out what your perspective is. NAP's letter says July 1st. What's your question?