Credit for Industry Certs

[spazz]

Well.. sorta. If you're just say CLEP by itself then yes. If you include DANTES, Excelsior, perhaps even those IT Certs we named this thread after then you could probably do all of a Psychology degree and all of a CIS degree. Throw in the GRE and you could probably 'test' out of another degree.

Well I do not know what school you go to then. If you take a state school (practically anyone can get into), then you would not be able to test out of the 3 years of core classes.

Maybe if you do an online program or whatever, but even if you could, would it be worth the time and money? Would the degree really be worth as much as a traditional 4 year degree? Nope. All the factors I have talked about are going to come into play here. Accreddiation, employability etc.

For every clep I take at my school, I have to get 3 people to sign off on it. Most colleges only accept CLEP, and most schools are not going to allow you to clep anymore then 2 or 3 courses.

GRE is used for graduate school entrance, there is no testing out of a degree. That is absurd. If that was true, anyone could take a GRE course that teaches you how to crack the GRE, and everyone would just go ace the GRE. Then they would have a meaningless 4 year degree.

[siersema]

Well I do not know what school you go to then. If you take a state school (practically anyone can get into), then you would not be able to test out of the 3 years of core classes.

Maybe if you do an online program or whatever, but even if you could, would it be worth the time and money? Would the degree really be worth as much as a traditional 4 year degree? Nope. All the factors I have talked about are going to come into play here. Accreddiation, employability etc.

For every clep I take at my school, I have to get 3 people to sign off on it. Most colleges only accept CLEP, and most schools are not going to allow you to clep anymore then 2 or 3 courses.

GRE is used for graduate school entrance, there is no testing out of a degree. That is absurd. If that was true, anyone could take a GRE course that teaches you how to crack the GRE, and everyone would just go ace the GRE. Then they would have a meaningless 4 year degree.

I promise I'm not making this stuff up. Many (hundreds+) colleges take more than just CLEP. DANTES and ECE are widley accepted. Yes, you can test out of an entire degree at an accredited school, Regional Accrediation infact, often called the gold standard. The three schools I'm aware of are Excelsior, Charter Oak State College, and Thomas Edison State College. DePaul seems to have a very liberal acceptance, as does Athabasca (Canadian). Two of the three are indeed state schools. As for the GRE, the GRE Subject exams can count towards credits at various schools. Excelsior awards from 3 to 30 credits depending on score (very high score for 30 obviously), and Charter Oak also awards a very high number. Would these be worth as much as a traditional degree? Well, first off lets break it down to which degree and assume it's that Liberal Arts degree you've already said has no value. So we've got a LA Bachelor in General Studies from say Indiana University or a BS in General Studies from TESC or BS in Liberal Studies from Excelsior. All 3 are Regionally Accredited degrees so the HR person that just wants to know if you have a legit degree can check the box, all 3 can get you into a graduate program (many graduate programs look at GPA, but don't care what your major is) so you're safe in academia, so yeah I'd say they do have pretty close to the same utility given the same major. Given the 3 schools I mentioned someone would probably only go with Indiana first for employment just based on name recognition. But if my example was some small, but traditional school, vs one of the other 3 I'm not sure that the traditional school would really have any more utility. They aren't going to know 'how' the degree was obtained any more than your future potential employers are going to know that you CLEP'd out of a few things. Those of us with online degrees don't have to put 'online degree' on our resume and it's not on our transcripts, or our diplomas. The 'bias' some HR departments have would never impact us unless said HR person was very familer with the schools we listed.

and now lets say someone questioned my use of CLEP's to obtain a degree (though I haven't done that many), your school has given me cover. I can say hey.. you know Spazz's school is pretty awsome and all take a look at them they also accept the same CLEP's I've taken, so they must agree that the CLEP's are equal to their own courses, they just disagree with my school on how many CLEP's a student can transfer into their program. I could then show them a copy of your schools minimum passing score's for CLEP, whip out a copy of my transcript with my CLEP scores and perhaps even impress them with what your 'traditional' school required as the minimum and what I recieved on my exam.

As for where I'm going. Excelsior (as my sig says), my goals were to

1. Have a degree, any (legit) degree. I'm happy where I am with employment, not having a degre has never held be back, but it could in the future. Perhaps one day that employer just won't look at my resume without checking that degree box.

2. Be in a format I could accomplish without hurting my current work load. This meant online, or very minimal part time traditional, at the very least, exams for some courses has really helped out a ton.

3. Cost. I'm not taking out loans for a degree program, I'm to cheap for that.

4. Get into a graduate program if I want to. This impacted the accrediation of the school I wanted to go with. I've looked into many graduate programs (MS in Management, MS IT, MBA, and so on). I've yet to see any requirements that would exclude a degree from any of the three schools I've mentioned. Normal requirements include. GPA, Regionally Accredited undergrad, specific course pre-req's. Additional requirements for some programs include: letters of recomendation, entrance exam. Not a single program said anything about the learning method if the undergrad degree. Could this bias happen? Sure, but it would have to be at the level of the admissions office, and unless it's a very difficult program to get into that isn't likely.

If you want to tell me where you go I'll look, or you can look. I'm guessing that if your school has graduate programs I'd qualify for some of them with a degree from one of these schools.


Am I missing out on some traditional experiences? Hell ya I am. I don't get to party all the time, I never had professional training in chugging a beer, I never got to call my parents for money, I'm not under a huge debt load (infact no school debt and I'm a few months from being able to write a check to pay off the balance of my mortgage), and my resume doesn't have 4 years of my professional IT experience missing. All at the same time yes I have friends in traditional education (I'm 28), they don't come back to me and say how awsome their teacher was because he researched all this stuff, they complain about the fact that they're in debt, or they have a degre now but don't know what to do for a job, or they talk about their frat and some awsome party they had. There are certainly things you'll get in traditional education that you won't get in a non-traditional format but a big part of it seems to be social, not educational. You can't tell me that in your traditional programs that you don't know students who seem to be slackers most of the semester but cram for tests the night before, that happens everywhere. Are those people more educated than people who study hard for a few weeks and take a CLEP? If they aren't, then what's the harm in taking that CLEP (or other exam) for more than just a few courses.

[snazzlefrag]

Well I do not know what school you go to then. If you take a state school (practically anyone can get into), then you would not be able to test out of the 3 years of core classes.

Maybe if you do an online program or whatever, but even if you could, would it be worth the time and money? Would the degree really be worth as much as a traditional 4 year degree? Nope. All the factors I have talked about are going to come into play here. Accreddiation, employability etc.

For every clep I take at my school, I have to get 3 people to sign off on it. Most colleges only accept CLEP, and most schools are not going to allow you to clep anymore then 2 or 3 courses.

GRE is used for graduate school entrance, there is no testing out of a degree. That is absurd. If that was true, anyone could take a GRE course that teaches you how to crack the GRE, and everyone would just go ace the GRE. Then they would have a meaningless 4 year degree.

Hi Spazz,

Most of the members of this board are testing out of most, if not all, of the required courses that make up their degree.

CLEPs are all lower level and mostly general education type subjects. But there are several degree-specific exams too.

DANTES, ECE, TECEP, and OHIO State offer upper level exams as well as lower level exams.

If you can prove you know the subjects, it is possible to fulfill most or all of the requirements for several different kinds of degrees.

A majority of schools accept CLEP exams, and many schools are actually certified CLEP test-centers themselves. Usually, a college will accept up to 30 credits via testing. Some allow 60, and a very select few (three) allow you to test out of all 120 credits. As long as you are able to learn on your own, and can pass the required exams, you can earn your entire degreee through a combination of CLEP, DANTES, ECE, TECEP, OHIO and/or B&M classes.

The "Big 3" Regionally Accredited schools that allow you to test out of an entire degree are:

http://www.excelsior.edu

http://www.charteroak.edu

http://www.tesct.edu

Of course, this means that you have to be able to study on your own and master each subject sufficiently to pass up to FORTY different exams at the lower and upper college level. It's no easy feat. But it's doable, and many on this board are doing exactly that.

As for the GRE, there are actually two different kinds of GRE. There is the general GRE exam, which is what many colleges use to evaluate readiness for graduate study, and there are also the GRE subject exams. These are subject-specific exams which provide a means to evaluate whether a student has mastered all the individual subjects which make up their given major. For example, the GRE Psychology exam would test your knowledge of subjects like Social Psych, Abnormal Psych, Lifespan Psych, Research, Educational Psych, Behavioral Psych etc. These 'subject exams' are not the kind of exam you can just cram overnight for and pass. It takes a real depth of learning to prove that you have the required knowledge that goes with earning a major in a particular subject.

For this reason, some schools will award credit on a sliding scale based on how well you perform on the subject GRE. If you score higher than the vast majority of already graduated Psych majors who took the exam, it is possible to be awarded up to 30 credits towards your Psychology major. In effect, you have tested out of an entire major with one (admittedly mammoth) exam.

Hope that helps,
Snazzlefrag

[spazz]

I promise I'm not making this stuff up. Many (hundreds+) colleges take more than just CLEP. DANTES and ECE are widley accepted. Yes, you can test out of an entire degree at an accredited school, Regional Accrediation infact, often called the gold standard. The three schools I'm aware of are Excelsior, Charter Oak State College, and Thomas Edison State College. DePaul seems to have a very liberal acceptance, as does Athabasca (Canadian). Two of the three are indeed state schools. As for the GRE, the GRE Subject exams can count towards credits at various schools. Excelsior awards from 3 to 30 credits depending on score (very high score for 30 obviously), and Charter Oak also awards a very high number. Would these be worth as much as a traditional degree? Well, first off lets break it down to which degree and assume it's that Liberal Arts degree you've already said has no value. So we've got a LA Bachelor in General Studies from say Indiana University or a BS in General Studies from TESC or BS in Liberal Studies from Excelsior. All 3 are Regionally Accredited degrees so the HR person that just wants to know if you have a legit degree can check the box, all 3 can get you into a graduate program (many graduate programs look at GPA, but don't care what your major is) so you're safe in academia, so yeah I'd say they do have pretty close to the same utility given the same major. Given the 3 schools I mentioned someone would probably only go with Indiana first for employment just based on name recognition. But if my example was some small, but traditional school, vs one of the other 3 I'm not sure that the traditional school would really have any more utility. They aren't going to know 'how' the degree was obtained any more than your future potential employers are going to know that you CLEP'd out of a few things. Those of us with online degrees don't have to put 'online degree' on our resume and it's not on our transcripts, or our diplomas. The 'bias' some HR departments have would never impact us unless said HR person was very familer with the schools we listed.

and now lets say someone questioned my use of CLEP's to obtain a degree (though I haven't done that many), your school has given me cover. I can say hey.. you know Spazz's school is pretty awsome and all take a look at them they also accept the same CLEP's I've taken, so they must agree that the CLEP's are equal to their own courses, they just disagree with my school on how many CLEP's a student can transfer into their program. I could then show them a copy of your schools minimum passing score's for CLEP, whip out a copy of my transcript with my CLEP scores and perhaps even impress them with what your 'traditional' school required as the minimum and what I recieved on my exam.

As for where I'm going. Excelsior (as my sig says), my goals were to

1. Have a degree, any (legit) degree. I'm happy where I am with employment, not having a degre has never held be back, but it could in the future. Perhaps one day that employer just won't look at my resume without checking that degree box.

2. Be in a format I could accomplish without hurting my current work load. This meant online, or very minimal part time traditional, at the very least, exams for some courses has really helped out a ton.

3. Cost. I'm not taking out loans for a degree program, I'm to cheap for that.

4. Get into a graduate program if I want to. This impacted the accrediation of the school I wanted to go with. I've looked into many graduate programs (MS in Management, MS IT, MBA, and so on). I've yet to see any requirements that would exclude a degree from any of the three schools I've mentioned. Normal requirements include. GPA, Regionally Accredited undergrad, specific course pre-req's. Additional requirements for some programs include: letters of recomendation, entrance exam. Not a single program said anything about the learning method if the undergrad degree. Could this bias happen? Sure, but it would have to be at the level of the admissions office, and unless it's a very difficult program to get into that isn't likely.

If you want to tell me where you go I'll look, or you can look. I'm guessing that if your school has graduate programs I'd qualify for some of them with a degree from one of these schools.


Am I missing out on some traditional experiences? Hell ya I am. I don't get to party all the time, I never had professional training in chugging a beer, I never got to call my parents for money, I'm not under a huge debt load (infact no school debt and I'm a few months from being able to write a check to pay off the balance of my mortgage), and my resume doesn't have 4 years of my professional IT experience missing. All at the same time yes I have friends in traditional education (I'm 28), they don't come back to me and say how awsome their teacher was because he researched all this stuff, they complain about the fact that they're in debt, or they have a degre now but don't know what to do for a job, or they talk about their frat and some awsome party they had. There are certainly things you'll get in traditional education that you won't get in a non-traditional format but a big part of it seems to be social, not educational. You can't tell me that in your traditional programs that you don't know students who seem to be slackers most of the semester but cram for tests the night before, that happens everywhere. Are those people more educated than people who study hard for a few weeks and take a CLEP? If they aren't, then what's the harm in taking that CLEP (or other exam) for more than just a few courses.

Schools do not put the real requirements on the site. They are forced by the state or by public relations to give every candidate an equal chance. But when it comes down to it, people discriminate. Think about it, I have gone for many job interviews in different states as an admin. The people who get the job are the kids who graduate from the guys school (Alumni respect).

Employers look down on distance learning degrees and certainly testing out of whole degrees (I still do not believe this is possible). This just proves that the degree is worth nothing. Put yourself in a position from a traditional school and think about it. Getting one of these degrees to maybe open a door for you is fine. But do not expect anything else out of it. Almost all jobs above the poverty line requires a 4 year degree. If you apply for a job in IT with other candiates from traditional state schools, and you went to a distance learning, you will never get the job.

As for graduate school, the only graduate school you will get accepted to is online. No traditional school would accept a degree from a distance learning program where you tested out of all your classes.

Cost really is not a problem for kids coming out of highschool. In most states there are scholarships awarded to most of the kids who support the kid in-state. If not then you can take out government loans with barly any interest (inflation exceeds the interest rate).

I understand the reasons you chose the distance learning, and I respect your work etc. But you have to understand that by choosing distance learning, you have limited yourself. It is a trade off you took by enrolling in distance learning.

Another thing to think about, would you want a surgeon operating on you when he simply tested out of his under grad and graduate school? This means he would have no experience and absolutly no knowledge on what the hell he is doing. Might as well pick a bum off the street. This is the same thing for any degree besides liberal arts (just maybe not a life or death relationship).

I am sorry I'm being very blunt with you.

[spazz]

Hi Spazz,

Most of the members of this board are testing out of most, if not all, of the required courses that make up their degree.

CLEPs are all lower level and mostly general education type subjects. But there are several degree-specific exams too.

DANTES, ECE, TECEP, and OHIO State offer upper level exams as well as lower level exams.

If you can prove you know the subjects, it is possible to fulfill most or all of the requirements for several different kinds of degrees.

A majority of schools accept CLEP exams, and many schools are actually certified CLEP test-centers themselves. Usually, a college will accept up to 30 credits via testing. Some allow 60, and a very select few (three) allow you to test out of all 120 credits. As long as you are able to learn on your own, and can pass the required exams, you can earn your entire degreee through a combination of CLEP, DANTES, ECE, TECEP, OHIO and/or B&M classes.

The "Big 3" Regionally Accredited schools that allow you to test out of an entire degree are:

http://www.excelsior.edu

http://www.charteroak.edu

http://www.tesct.edu

Of course, this means that you have to be able to study on your own and master each subject sufficiently to pass up to FORTY different exams at the lower and upper college level. It's no easy feat. But it's doable, and many on this board are doing exactly that.

As for the GRE, there are actually two different kinds of GRE. There is the general GRE exam, which is what many colleges use to evaluate readiness for graduate study, and there are also the GRE subject exams. These are subject-specific exams which provide a means to evaluate whether a student has mastered all the individual subjects which make up their given major. For example, the GRE Psychology exam would test your knowledge of subjects like Social Psych, Abnormal Psych, Lifespan Psych, Research, Educational Psych, Behavioral Psych etc. These 'subject exams' are not the kind of exam you can just cram overnight for and pass. It takes a real depth of learning to prove that you have the required knowledge that goes with earning a major in a particular subject.

For this reason, some schools will award credit on a sliding scale based on how well you perform on the subject GRE. If you score higher than the vast majority of already graduated Psych majors who took the exam, it is possible to be awarded up to 30 credits towards your Psychology major. In effect, you have tested out of an entire major with one (admittedly mammoth) exam.

Hope that helps,
Snazzlefrag

Those schools are not accreddited by any sound organization. What most online/distance learning schools do is create their own accrediation organization, then say they are accreddited. Use common sense to figure it out, if these schools lack sufficent faculty and research, how are they going to be accreddited by an sound organization?

Uhh? The subject GRE are used for graduate admissions. I have never heard of people getting credit for passing the GRE (seems like these online colleges went over board in EVERYTHING). Another reason why you would not be admitted into a graduate program with a lib arts degree.

The only thing left to do is give credit to students for watching tv or some other activity you do to relax. This is absolutly ridiculous.

[siersema]

I'm sorry. I can argue with your opinions just fine, and it's kind of fun. But to claim that any of these schools aren't accredited when you can look at their site or the site of the accreditor is just plain wrong. They are certainly not only legit accreditors but they very same accreditors that accredit the best schools in the country.

[Urbannaja]

Those schools are not accreddited by any sound organization. What most online/distance learning schools do is create their own accrediation organization, then say they are accreddited. Use common sense to figure it out, if these schools lack sufficent faculty and research, how are they going to be accreddited by an sound organization?

Uhh? The subject GRE are used for graduate admissions. I have never heard of people getting credit for passing the GRE (seems like these online colleges went over board in EVERYTHING). Another reason why you would not be admitted into a graduate program with a lib arts degree.

The only thing left to do is give credit to students for watching tv or some other activity you do to relax. This is absolutly ridiculous.

Spazz, you obviously know nothing about accreditation, distance learning, or challenge exams. It's one thing to believe that the degree is worthless because of an "unwritten bias by nearly all employers/traditional colleges," but if you cannot believe what others tell you, and you can't be bothered to click on a link to view accreditation, why comment at all? Everyone here suggests research on the degree you chose prior to spending time and money on it, and we point out links to accreditation, and talk with admissions officials, and try to help eachother out with our own experiences. Just because you can't "believe" in online degrees, testing out, or lib arts degrees, doesn't have any bearing or relevance to anyone else. Be helpful and post a link to a top company that won't hire someone with a lib arts degree, or a distance ed degree... Otherwise, what's your point?

[spazz]

Spazz, you obviously know nothing about accreditation, distance learning, or challenge exams. It's one thing to believe that the degree is worthless because of an "unwritten bias by nearly all employers/traditional colleges," but if you cannot believe what others tell you, and you can't be bothered to click on a link to view accreditation, why comment at all? Everyone here suggests research on the degree you chose prior to spending time and money on it, and we point out links to accreditation, and talk with admissions officials, and try to help eachother out with our own experiences. Just because you can't "believe" in online degrees, testing out, or lib arts degrees, doesn't have any bearing or relevance to anyone else. Be helpful and post a link to a top company that won't hire someone with a lib arts degree, or a distance ed degree... Otherwise, what's your point?

There are only a few major accrediations for business, engineering, nursing etc. I agree, there are hundreds of accrediation programs, but most of them are meaningless (because schools who have no clue make them up). The only accrediation for computing that people listen to is ABET. I would appreciate and challenge ANYONE on here to find me an ABET distance learning degree that you can completly test out. You cannot research common sense, I am sorry. It is not that I do not believe in online degrees, they are right for some people. But there is a limited on what you can do online and what you cant. For instance, you CANNOT do IT or any computing/engineering degree online. Practically EVERY course from an ABET program has LABS, Oral communication requirement etc etc. There is no WAY! It is common sense, same for Biology or any other science. Lets talk about business now, HOW IN THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO GET A BUSINESS DEGREE ONLINE? 1/2 of the requirements for a typical business degree are presentation, oral projects, etc. It is simply not possible. This applies to practically ANY degree, probally even a liberal arts, since you would most likly need theater,science,business, etc.

I could practically name ANY company that will not hire people with a liberal arts degree. ANY job application that says requirement: BS in CS, or BS in Math etc. CHECK MONSTER OR ANY OTHER JOB SITE!!!!!!!!!

I agree, one thing they will not list is degree requirement (traditional or online), but you do not think the employer will look at what college you went to? If you're applying to a top company and specially in IT, where the market is VERY competitve. They are going to choose the person with the most experience (traditional) and who went to the top college.

COMMON SENSE!!!!

[SimonTam]

The only accrediation for computing that people listen to is ABET. I would appreciate and challenge ANYONE on here to find me an ABET distance learning degree that you can completly test out. You cannot research common sense, I am sorry. It is not that I do not believe in online degrees, they are right for some people. But there is a limited on what you can do online and what you cant. For instance, you CANNOT do IT or any computing/engineering degree online.

I accept your challenge. FSU (Florida State University, you may have heard of them) offers a Bachelor of Science in Computer and Information Sciences which can be done ONLINE! I'll accept the fact that you cannot 'test out' of this degree. However, it can be done at a distance and the degree is no different from the traditional degree. BTW, FSU's School of Engineering is ABET accredited. EDITED (added the following): Also, this is more than just looking at a website. I have a friend that is currently IN this program. :END EDIT

Now, the accreditation that most of the others here have been trying to explain to you is what is known as regional accreditation. This type of accreditation covers the entire school. I agree that ABET accreditation is important for an Engineering program at a school, but that doesn't mean that a regional accreditation is useless. For your information, regional accreditation authorities are not 'made up' by the schools. They are verified to meet the standards of accrediting organization under the CHEA. Excelsior received it's accreditation from the Middle States Association of Schools and Colleges (http://www.msche.org). BTW, this is the exact same accreditation organization with which Princeton University (you may have heard of them too) is accredited.

There are some accreditation bodies that are 'made up' by degree mills and accreditation mills. To verify that a school is a legitimate school, you would have to ensure that the CHEA first recognizes the accreditation organization and then check with the accreditation organization to see if the school is truly accredited.

Hope that clears it up for you.

[cbrchris]

This is from the ABET.org site for Excelsior College. You may not be able to obtain the degree completely by testing out of it though. I have not researched this degree so I am not sure, but it is accredited by ABET.




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Excelsior College
Albany, NY


Technology
Date of Next General Review: 2009 - 10

Electronic(s) Engineering Technology BS [1998]
Nuclear Engineering Technology BS [1998]