Beginning my journey

[dfrecore]

Yes. Intro to Psych anywhere will duplicate. But there are plenty of Psych courses at Study.com that don't duplicate.

The one thing that you can do at Study.com that no other provider offers (that I know of - although Khan Academy does it, but they aren't credit-granting): when you take something like Intro to Psych there, virtually every other Psych course you take will already have partial completion of the course. Same with any other course that is similar. Take Intro to Marketing, and your other Marketing and some business courses will be partially done. Accounting, Business, History, etc. All will do this. As you do more courses in that vein, more of other courses will get completed. It will vary to the amounts, but it may be worth it to do it this way.

[HistoryMaker]

Dfrecore, thanks for all that you contribute here. I rarely talk at all, however, I want to share this. I had just received an email from TESU's Associate Vice President and University Registrar regarding Shmoop courses. I have already graduated and used some Shmoop courses. This is what it said:

"I am contacting you today to let you know that the acceptance of Shmoop courses as transfer credit at Thomas Edison State University has been indefinitely suspended pending further review.

We do not expect this change to affect you as we have no indication that you have taken or are planning to take Shmoop courses.

If you have any questions about how this policy change may affect your program of study, please contact the Office of Admissions and Enrollment Services"...

Edit: I have noted this here for the original poster regarding where to take a psychology course. You are right regarding the helpfulness of the overlap at Study.com that keeps a student from repeating the same competency and accelerates completion. I love Study.Com for how it organizes, presents, and delivers its curricula. However, Shmoop also has great courses and the only problem that I see that TESU may have with Shmoop is proctoring. To be fair, if that is the case, many courses from other providers would need the same scrutiny ad barrier. Nonetheless, TESU is no longer accepting Shmoop credit.

[coldseal]

Well thats a bummer, guess ill move onto my other options as Shmoop wont work anymore.

[coldseal]

I am reading more about Modern States and the free CLEP voucher they provide after completing their online courses. How difficult are CLEP exams compared to other sources of credit such as Sophia, Saylor, Study.com ect.

Also, I just learned about Saylor, and their courses are free, you just have to pay a 25$ proctor fee? After looking their courses up on ACE, they don't seem to have to many ACE accredited courses, but does seem worth it for the few they do have.

[jsd]

Saylor has a good chunk of credit approved courses, but some of them show up funny in the ACE database and are harder to find.

Here's a list of all of their courses. Note that some are ACE approved, others are NCCRS (some are both)

https://www.saylor.org/credit/

(And you are correct, you just pay $25 for proctoring)

[davewill]

I am reading more about Modern States and the free CLEP voucher they provide after completing their online courses. How difficult are CLEP exams compared to other sources of credit such as Sophia, Saylor, Study.com ect.

Also, I just learned about Saylor, and their courses are free, you just have to pay a 25$ proctor fee? After looking their courses up on ACE, they don't seem to have to many ACE accredited courses, but does seem worth it for the few they do have.

I think it has more to do with how good a test taker you are. If you can generally rock multiple choice tests and don't mind the "one final for all the marbles" approach, then you'll probably like CLEP and Saylor. If you don't, then you will probably prefer the online course format at Study.com and Straighterline.

[coldseal]

I applied to TESU, and am waiting for Study.com to hopefully accept my Guardian Scholarship. In the meantime, I have finished the following courses, and am a bit lost on what my next courses should be that apply to BALS. I am mostly interested in Philosophy/Psychology/Religion courses. As far as my 1 needed college level math course, is Aleks still an options, I like the Sophia course style, and see they have 1 math course available.

The Institute - ETHICS - Insurance Ethics (2cr)
Sophia - Developing Effective Teams (1cr), The Essentials of Managing Conflict (1cr), Ancient Greek Philosophers (3cr)
NFA - Community Safety Educators (1cr)
TEEX - Cybesecurity for Everyone (2cr), Cybesecurity for Business Professionals (2cr), Cybesecurity for IT Professionals (2cr)
Shmoop - History of Technology (3cr) (finished on 5/04/18, not sure if it will be accepted through TESU as I got my acceptance email on 5/10/18)

[Jeff Davidson]

Saylor has a good chunk of credit approved courses, but some of them show up funny in the ACE database and are harder to find.

Here's a list of all of their courses. Note that some are ACE approved, others are NCCRS (some are both)

https://www.saylor.org/credit/

(And you are correct, you just pay $25 for proctoring)

Hi JSD -  Yes, the ACE database - due to the way they set up the "Alternative Credit Project" - does make you search for all our listings but you can be assured we do not list any on our site that are not approved.  And, in the first part of June - assuming ACE stays on schedule - that database issue should be resolved and all the listings should appear in one place under our profile.

-Jeff Davidson, Saylor Academy

 (random fact- my initials are JSD!)

[coldseal]

Thanks everyone for the help so far, this forum has been a huge help, I am finally starting to understand how everywhere works, and am filling out my degree plan a bit more, thought I would update with what I have so far. I'm open to any recommendations to help fill out my plan.

[dfrecore]

Thanks everyone for the help so far, this forum has been a huge help, I am finally starting to understand how everywhere works, and am filling out my degree plan a bit more, thought I would update with what I have so far. I'm open to any recommendations to help fill out my plan.

Just an FYI, my spreadsheet is designed so that instead of DONE in the column you're putting it in, you actually put the number of credits there, and remove the number from the other column.  As you go, the number of credits completed adds up, with the other column showing what's left to take.

I also highlight all the way across the completed courses.

Obviously you can do what you want with it.