Can your Sophia credits be rejected when applying for a Master?

[ausernameisneeded]

I was browsing reddit and I got across this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SNHU/comments/g..._learning/

I would like to get into a top university in Canada for a STEM master after my Bachelor.

But I'm worried about Sophia credits.

Does anyone have an experience with getting into top universities with a bachelor degree that has a lot of alternative credits like Sophia, saylor.org ...

Like can for example university of Toronto make you retake all your Sophia credits before you start?

I'm starting to be scared of Sophia Learning, it's starting to look like a credits mill to me.
The courses are very easy and the exams are open book (introductory courses, common)

[teejayb]

All Sophia credits are undergrad. There are no graduate courses currently available on Sophia.

[ausernameisneeded]

All Sophia credits are undergrad. There are no graduate courses currently available on Sophia.

That's not my concern.

My concern is after getting your Bachelor degree, the grad school will look at all your transcripts.

[rachel83az]

It really depends on the university. Yes, they will want to see your transcripts. In most cases, they won't care where your Gen Ed credits come from. Sophia is not that dissimilar from CLEP exams, and CLEP exams have been known for decades.

The original poster of that Reddit thread is completely wrong. You might not be able to get into, say, an MIT Master's program with Sophia credits. But MIT barely accepts non-MIT university credits in the first place. That is, if you start at somewhere like UCLA and manage to transfer to MIT in the second year of your Bachelor's degree, you might have to start 100% from scratch!

However, plenty of students have used Sophia, Study.com, Coopersmith, etc. credits and have gone on to get degrees from well-ranked universities. I don't know about the University of Toronto specifically. You'd need to contact their graduate program(s) yourself.

The exception to Sophia courses being fine is if the graduate program has certain very specific requirements. For instance, if they want "Biology I w/ Lab" as part of the requirements to enter their pre-Med program, they might only accept an in-person biology class. They probably would not accept Human Biology w/ Lab from Sophia. In essence, unless it is a specific requirement of the degree program, it's unlikely that the university will care where the credits came from - so long as the degree itself is legit.

It does get a little complicated when crossing borders, but Canada is probably going to be the most open to accepting alt credits simply by virtue of being so close to the US as to be more familiar with the system than other countries might be.

[ausernameisneeded]

It really depends on the university. Yes, they will want to see your transcripts. In most cases, they won't care where your Gen Ed credits come from. Sophia is not that dissimilar from CLEP exams, and CLEP exams have been known for decades.

The original poster of that Reddit thread is completely wrong. You might not be able to get into, say, an MIT Master's program with Sophia credits. But MIT barely accepts non-MIT university credits in the first place. That is, if you start at somewhere like UCLA and manage to transfer to MIT in the second year of your Bachelor's degree, you might have to start 100% from scratch!

However, plenty of students have used Sophia, Study.com, Coopersmith, etc. credits and have gone on to get degrees from well-ranked universities. I don't know about the University of Toronto specifically. You'd need to contact their graduate program(s) yourself.

The exception to Sophia courses being fine is if the graduate program has certain very specific requirements. For instance, if they want "Biology I w/ Lab" as part of the requirements to enter their pre-Med program, they might only accept an in-person biology class. They probably would not accept Human Biology w/ Lab from Sophia. In essence, unless it is a specific requirement of the degree program, it's unlikely that the university will care where the credits came from - so long as the degree itself is legit.

It does get a little complicated when crossing borders, but Canada is probably going to be the most open to accepting alt credits simply by virtue of being so close to the US as to be more familiar with the system than other countries might be.

Oh man,
 
I wish I could satisfy all the SNHU Gen Ed courses with Saylor instead of Sophia  

My budget is $ 9 per Gen Ed courses.

So Sophia and Saylor are the only options.

And unfortunately Sophia seems to be the only option because a lot of SNHU Gen Ed courses are not available at Saylor.

[davewill]

There are a few factors in play here. One is getting admitted. A grad school will look at the total package of your application, what degree(s) you have, what school you graduated from, your grades, your professional experience, references, essay, etc... When it comes to your grades, they will typically compute a GPA based on your transcript. Some school look at all your courses, some at the last 30 or 60 credits, etc... Since alt credit is typically not graded they can't use them to compute their GPA. Typically, the better the rest of your package, the less important your GPA will be.

Another factor is prerequisites. In addition to degree requirements, programs will often have prerequisite courses they want you have taken at the undergrad level. Some schools may decline to accept alt credit to fulfill those prerequisites. Typically, they will allow you to take those courses at their school (which can be expensive) to start the program. If you know what those courses are, then you can arrange to take them from an RA school rather than as alt credit.

If you have a particular program in mind, you should contact them and discuss these concerns NOW, before you plan your degree. Grad school admissions offices are typically much more responsive and helpful than undergrad ones, so don't hesitate to reach out.

If you are willing to be flexible about your grad program, then we have found that it's perfectly possible to find programs that will work with your DIY degree, and plenty of people have done so successfully.

[ausernameisneeded]

There are a few factors in play here. One is getting admitted. A grad school will look at the total package of your application, what degree(s) you have, what school you graduated from, your grades, your professional experience, references, essay, etc... When it comes to your grades, they will typically compute a GPA based on your transcript. Some school look at all your courses, some at the last 30 or 60 credits, etc... Since alt credit is typically not graded they can't use them to compute their GPA. Typically, the better the rest of your package, the less important your GPA will be.

Another factor is prerequisites. In addition to degree requirements, programs will often have prerequisite courses they want you have taken at the undergrad level. Some schools may decline to accept alt credit to fulfill those prerequisites. Typically, they will allow you to take those courses at their school (which can be expensive) to start the program. If you know what those courses are, then you can arrange to take them from an RA school rather than as alt credit.

If you have a particular program in mind, you should contact them and discuss these concerns NOW, before you plan your degree. Grad school admissions offices are typically much more responsive and helpful than undergrad ones, so don't hesitate to reach out.

If you are willing to be flexible about your grad program, then we have found that it's perfectly possible to find programs that will work with your DIY degree, and plenty of people have done so successfully.

I don't have a specific school + program that I have to go to.

I will likely have a list of 10 to 20 schools that I'll apply to.

[rachel83az]

Oh man,
 
I wish I could satisfy all the SNHU Gen Ed courses with Saylor instead of Sophia  

My budget is $ 9 per Gen Ed courses.

So Sophia and Saylor are the only options.

And unfortunately Sophia seems to be the only option because a lot of SNHU Gen Ed courses are not available at Saylor.

$9 per gen ed course for Sophia is very doable for most of them. Though there are often discount codes available, Sophia is $99/mo. unless you pay for multiple months at once. That means finishing 11 courses in a single month or one every ~3 days. This can definitely be done.

Saylor courses, in contrast, can take weeks to study. Mainly because the courses aren't very well put together.

But SNHU does accept NCCRS courses as well. OnlineDegree is NCCRS. I'm not sure if it was overlooked by LevelUP when creating the SNHU plans or if they don't seem to have anything worthwhile for SNHU.

[ausernameisneeded]

Oh man,
 
I wish I could satisfy all the SNHU Gen Ed courses with Saylor instead of Sophia  

My budget is $ 9 per Gen Ed courses.

So Sophia and Saylor are the only options.

And unfortunately Sophia seems to be the only option because a lot of SNHU Gen Ed courses are not available at Saylor.

$9 per gen ed course for Sophia is very doable for most of them. Though there are often discount codes available, Sophia is $99/mo. unless you pay for multiple months at once. That means finishing 11 courses in a single month or one every ~3 days. This can definitely be done.

Saylor courses, in contrast, can take weeks to study. Mainly because the courses aren't very well put together.

But SNHU does accept NCCRS courses as well. OnlineDegree is NCCRS. I'm not sure if it was overlooked by LevelUP when creating the SNHU plans or if they don't seem to have anything worthwhile for SNHU.

My plan was to study all the courses before paying for a subscription.

[bjcheung77]

Basically, for any ACE/NCCRS such as Saylor.org, Sophia.org, and so on, they are NOT acceptable for any Canadian institution. A few years back, I searched the entire ACE list of institutions that mentioned they accept ACE credits - Only 4 Canadian institutions came up, I emailed the four and they didn't acknowledge that fact. I went up to the director level for each and every one - no go. That list has since changed, and it's true for all other institutions in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, only 2-3 thousand US institutions accept ACE/NCCRS.