I came close to completing a BSc hons in Computer Science in the UK, but six weeks before completion I was pulled out by a shrink. I moved to the US soon after, and no one will accept many credits to let me finish up. I was looking at just 20 credits accepted-not much for three years study!

So I'm looking at CLEP to do as much as I can. How much is it feasible to complete in this way? I'm pretty new to CLEP.

CLEP would be a way to knock out some gen ed classes but outside of the big 3 most schools limit the amount of credit you can earn via CLEP and DANTES, I believe usually 30 credits.

So I would really be no better off than transferring the credits that I have? The big three-what are they and how many credits do they accept by way of CLEP?

Really depends on what they give you credit for. If they give you 20 gen ed (math, science, English, etc.) credits you can still earn a few credits by testing. If your 20 credits are all comp sci based you can earn a lot more.

The big 3 are assessment colleges that have no residency requirements and will let you test out of dang near an entire degree based off your major. They're all regionally accredited, which is the gold standard for US schools (short of program accreditation, for example, ABET for engineering, AACSB for business, etc.) They are Thomas Edison State College (tesc.edu), Excelsior College (excelsior.edu), and Charter Oak State College (cosc.edu). They are in essence degree completion programs for adult learners and those that have college credits but no reasonable way of tying them into a degree, which is where I fit in . My degree from TESC is composed of credits from 6 colleges, brick-and-mortar and online, in addition to 20 some odd CLEP and DANTES credits.

Since the UK and Us are on similar systems and standards this seems odd..did you have the transcripts evaluated by a foreign credit evaluator ? Here is a site with some you can check NACESÂ - The Standard of Excellence for Credential Evaluation Services .Here is another site that would prob have more info on that,join and ask there...Distance Learning Discussion Forums - Powered by vBulletin. You can look at the sites for the big 3 in the last post and see what if any eval service they use...

On a comp sci course unless they think your upper level are lower I would think most things would xfr over.

Here in the states most traditional schools you can xfr a max of 30 credits..if it is the same or close in the UK,the smart thing would be to take the classes you need to complete and then xfr them to that school. A UK degree should be just as accepted as one from here.

It is just as accepted, though honestly things are a little different as we do our BSC in three years rather than four so I am not sure how that compares.

Thank you both for the replies, I will look into your links. I still have many questions regarding CLEP because of other circumstances that (currently) prevent me working with my old university.

By the way in the UK we don't do any general ed. It's all computer science from the day you start-would that affect what would be allowed? I'll look into the three mentioned schools.

Blitzstudie Wrote:Since the UK and Us are on similar systems and standards this seems odd..did you have the transcripts evaluated by a foreign credit evaluator ? Here is a site with some you can check NACESÂ - The Standard of Excellence for Credential Evaluation Services .Here is another site that would prob have more info on that,join and ask there...Distance Learning Discussion Forums - Powered by vBulletin. You can look at the sites for the big 3 in the last post and see what if any eval service they use...

On a comp sci course unless they think your upper level are lower I would think most things would xfr over.

Here in the states most traditional schools you can xfr a max of 30 credits..if it is the same or close in the UK,the smart thing would be to take the classes you need to complete and then xfr them to that school. A UK degree should be just as accepted as one from here.

Yeah, my wife is Italian and we are going thru this now. Believe it or not US schools seem to give more credit for Europeon schools.

Blitzstudie Wrote:Since the UK and Us are on similar systems and standards this seems odd..did you have the transcripts evaluated by a foreign credit evaluator ? Here is a site with some you can check NACESÂ - The Standard of Excellence for Credential Evaluation Services .Here is another site that would prob have more info on that,join and ask there...Distance Learning Discussion Forums - Powered by vBulletin. You can look at the sites for the big 3 in the last post and see what if any eval service they use...

On a comp sci course unless they think your upper level are lower I would think most things would xfr over.

Here in the states most traditional schools you can xfr a max of 30 credits..if it is the same or close in the UK,the smart thing would be to take the classes you need to complete and then xfr them to that school. A UK degree should be just as accepted as one from here.

At most regionally accredited schools in the US you can transfer over a max of 90 credits, with a typical max of 30 being earned via alternative means (ie, testing out). This allows for a 25% residency, which is standard outside the big 3.

I goofed, I meant to say most colleges want you to earn 30 credits there.

Since you almost finished a Comp Sci degree,one option would be to take the GRE subject test for Comp Sci..I think they are in Oct and Dec. Although I was looking for a different subject, what I found was Excelsior gives 30 credits-18 Lower and 12 upper for a score 80th percentile and above. Charter Oak and TESC dont require as high a score but give less credit. Def check this option as the test is only 130 bucks...

At EC at least you can pretty much CLEP all the gen ed stuff and most credits to fill out needed electives and UL stuff,they also offer thier own tests with UL and more subject specific.

I dont think TESC accepts GRE