Excelsior Review Plan

[dthom]

So i had an unofficial review done on my transcripts that i will be transferring over to Excelsior to complete the remianing 49 credits for a B.S. in Liberal Arts.
Here is what the reviewer had to say.

With this degree you do not need to declare a major but you will need to choose two depth areas. A depth area is 12 credits in one subject area with at least 3 at the upper level. Upper level courses are courses that begin with a 3 or 4. From what I reviewed, it looks like you will need to following semester hour (SH) credits to complete this degree:

Arts and Sciences
3 SH ENG 102
3 SH Liberal Arts Capstone Course
3 SH Social Sciences / History Electives
3 SH Natural Sciences / Math Electives
21 SH Arts and Sciences Electives (Any credits in Humanities, Social Sciences / History, or Natural Sciences / Math.)

Applied Professional
1 SH INL 102 (Information Literacy)
15 SH Applied Professional Electives

Please note that 18 SH of the credits you need in Arts and Sciences need to be upper level (I have already counted the Capstone Course as upper level) and 9 SH of the credits you need in Applied Professional need to be upper level. Keep this in mind when you choose your two depth areas.





with all of this being said, she was unable to help me out with what i can "test" out of.
thoughts? i want to try to complete these last 49 credits ASAP.

[Lady Grace of Pemberley]

Arts and Sciences
3 SH ENG 102 College Composition CLEP
3 SH Social Sciences / History Electives Psychology CLEP or Sociology CLEP
3 SH Natural Sciences / Math Electives Environment or Humanity DSST or ALEKS math course
21 SH Arts and Sciences Electives (Any credits in Humanities, Social Sciences / History, or Natural Sciences / Math.)
Technical Writing DSST, Analyzing and Interpreting Literature CLEP, Psychology CLEP or Sociology CLEP (whichever you didn't do above), ALEKS courses, Natural Sciences CLEP or Biology CLEP (or both), History of the U.S. I and/or II CLEPs, Social Sciences and History CLEP.

My suggestions are in red. However, you really need to choose tests that you will enjoy studying for. Additionally, I think that FEMAs fit into the Applied Professional Electives section (not positive, however). If so, I would highly recommend using FEMAs to fill that section.

[AlbaTiVo]

Keep in mind that it costs $75 per credit to transfer FEMA to Excelsior.

[NAP]

The first thing to do is make sure you have a good plan for your depths. Do you have any ideas for those? Have you already completed them?

For English II, do not take the CLEP; it will not be accepted. Consider SL Eng II or maybe a community college class.

For Info Lit, consider EC or LSU. It's unclear if EC still accepts the course from Penn Foster.

FEMA is an option for AP, but can be more expensive to transfer to EC.

Be sure to download the Student Guide to Credit by Exam to see all of your options: https://www.excelsior.edu/469

Do you see any exams that fit the categories you need and interest you?

You have 3 UL credits in MIS already. Do you have any more upper-level credits? Here is a list of test options:


Here are the UL choices using mostly DSSTs -
The most inexpensive way I know of to get 30 UL credits for a BS is going to be (by enrolling after July 1, 2010):

6 out of 7 DSST exams in Arts & Sciences – 18 UL –
Civil War
Soviet Union
Money & Banking
Business Ethics & Society
Criminal Justice
Ethics in America
World Religion

1 ALEKS Stats – 3 UL - if wanted instead of 1 DSST from above

1 Capstone course at EC – 3 UL - required, double-check that it will be Arts & Science and not Applied Professional

3 out of 5 DSST exams in Applied Professional – 9 UL – at most or more from above
Management Information Systems
Principles of Finance
Substance Abuse
Business Law II
Here’s to Your Health

There are now some lower-priced ECE's too. You'll need to check on which ones are still UL. Shortened Exams - excelsior.edu

Also note that you never have to choose AP, you can choose A&S instead.

Please let me know if that helped any.

[dthom]

The first thing to do is make sure you have a good plan for your depths. Do you have any ideas for those? Have you already completed them?

For English II, do not take the CLEP; it will not be accepted. Consider SL Eng II or maybe a community college class.

For Info Lit, consider EC or LSU. It's unclear if EC still accepts the course from Penn Foster.

FEMA is an option for AP, but can be more expensive to transfer to EC.

Be sure to download the Student Guide to Credit by Exam to see all of your options: https://www.excelsior.edu/469

Do you see any exams that fit the categories you need and interest you?

You have 3 UL credits in MIS already. Do you have any more upper-level credits? Here is a list of test options:


Here are the UL choices using mostly DSSTs -
The most inexpensive way I know of to get 30 UL credits for a BS is going to be (by enrolling after July 1, 2010):

6 out of 7 DSST exams in Arts & Sciences – 18 UL –
Civil War
Soviet Union
Money & Banking
Business Ethics & Society
Criminal Justice
Ethics in America
World Religion

1 ALEKS Stats – 3 UL - if wanted instead of 1 DSST from above

1 Capstone course at EC – 3 UL - required, double-check that it will be Arts & Science and not Applied Professional

3 out of 5 DSST exams in Applied Professional – 9 UL – at most or more from above
Management Information Systems
Principles of Finance
Substance Abuse
Business Law II
Here’s to Your Health

There are now some lower-priced ECE's too. You'll need to check on which ones are still UL. Shortened Exams - excelsior.edu

Also note that you never have to choose AP, you can choose A&S instead.

Please let me know if that helped any.

thanks you! I am looking at the depths of Mathematics and Computer Science!
the only Cleps/Dssts ive taken are listed in my signature.
I can take all of the cleps/dssts that will fill whatever credits i need.
i am military so the tests are free

[NAP]

You're welcome! Thank you for your service!

I know it seems like 49 credits left is a lot, but that will be taken up quickly by the UL and depth requirements, so plan this carefully.

Are you going to use ALEKS Stats for your math depth? If so, consider adding the 3 free NFA credits and any more math to your ACE transcript if needed. You can have 9 credits in math lower than Calculus and Stats is not counted toward those 9 credits.

I'd love to know what you get approved to use for the CS depth.

I also wanted to mention that about a year ago we found out we could not use DSST Intro to Computing and CLEP Info Sys and Comp App due to duplication. As far as I know, this still has not been posted officially. I almost lost 3 credits, but it turned out okay for me because I took them in 2010. Be sure to check on this, so you don't end up 3 credits short.

Please let us know if there is more we can do to help you with this.

[dthom]

what is NFA?
also i should have added that all of the credits shown below were already applied to my CCAF for the Air Force.
I am enrolling in the AU-ABC program for Excelsior.

I will probably start off by taking:
Principles of Finance
Substance Abuse
Here’s to Your Health

to satisfy the applied portion. im sure after i actually get started on this part of my degree, ill have everything figured out on what i can take to complete this.

[NAP]

NFA will count as lower-level Applied Professional, if you need them.

The NFA course I took was called Fire Service Supervision Q318. I thought the information was very practical for anybody to use. I put some feedback at the end of this post:

http://www.degreeforum.net/excelsior-tho...#post75628

There are two other NFA courses. One is hydraulics Q137. I have been told that it is 2 hours of math problems. The other is community education Q118. ACE says it takes a few hours longer to complete than the one I took, but I have not been able to verify that. See more info here: http://www.degreeforum.net/excelsior-tho...#post75926

As far as I know, those are the only 3 NFA courses we can use for college credit at EC right now. That would be 1 credit each, so 3 credits total. They are free except for the ACE transcript. The first ACE transcript is $40; any additional transcripts will be $15. Since you will probably do ALEKS, you will need at least one ACE transcript anyway.

ALEKS is $20 per month. People try to complete as many ACE-approved courses as they can in that time.

Since you already have MIS, just choose 2 of these for your max AP UL credits - Principles of Finance, Substance Abuse, Here’s to Your Health. If you need more credits, the fourth one will count it just won't be part of the 30 UL requirement.