Credit Storage Question

[Elizabeth A]

Is there an advantage when you enroll into a school before taking all tests and courses? I'm assuming I would have access to guidance from advisers, especially with COSC. I ask because I don't want to risk not finishing on time. I just want to do as many tests as possible and have the credits held at the testing center to transfer out at a later date. I know it costs $20... but then I need some UL credit that I would need to get from study.com, especially anything having to do with math since everything is open book and I suck at it. I guess I would have to use ACE for that... but I've heard that some people have their UL credits transfer as LL credit and that's definitely something I want to avoid.  Any suggestions?

[dfrecore]

So that's a lot of questions, and it really depends on the school.

If you want to go to COSC, you have to enroll - but you pay fees each term. So, we don't normally suggest you enroll until you're ready to take the cornerstone and close to being ready to take the capstone, to minimize fees.

No problem with taking CLEP and/or DSST exams and not sending them to a school until you're ready, and then sending them all on a single transcript.

Study.com is not "open book" per se, since there's no book - but the quizzes are "open book", the final exams are not.

All schools can change their policies here and there, or how they take courses/exams and what they give credit for. TESU changed to be more aligned with ACE about a year ago (maybe more), they rarely go astray from that anymore. COSC is less known, but they did realign their acceptance of Study.com courses fairly recently - and most of that was changing LL courses that they used to bring in as UL down to LL.

I would say that you plan out your degree, take your courses, apply at COSC when you're close to 100cr, make sure that everything you thought was going to come in as UL does, and that you've met all of your requirements - and then enroll and do your cornerstone, make arrangements to do your capstone, and make sure to take any final classes that you may need. It's a gamble, but at roughly $100/course, it's not a huge deal if they were to bring something in at LL that you thought would be UL.

[cookderosa]

Is there an advantage when you enroll into a school before taking all tests and courses? I'm assuming I would have access to guidance from advisers, especially with COSC. I ask because I don't want to risk not finishing on time. I just want to do as many tests as possible and have the credits held at the testing center to transfer out at a later date. I know it costs $20... but then I need some UL credit that I would need to get from study.com, especially anything having to do with math since everything is open book and I suck at it. I guess I would have to use ACE for that... but I've heard that some people have their UL credits transfer as LL credit and that's definitely something I want to avoid.  Any suggestions?

I have one son at COSC, and in his case, he's doing an Individualized Studies option which HAS required a lot of communication with his advisor and I've been happy to pay his student fee. It's discounted because he took Straighterline coures, you can do the same if you take Studycom courses. I don't remember the exact amount we pay- but it's under $300 every 4 months. If his degree were more straightforward, I could have done all the planning for him, and we could have saved 1 quarter in fees.