Excelsior or TESC

[baomiller]

Alissa,
Thank you for the wonderful information. You've been a big help

[MomOfMany]

wow, alissa that was tremendously helpful to me! Very nearly making EC a slam dunk. The only way I can see that I wouldn't do them, was if the cost of FEMA raw with TESC made them tremendously cheaper/faster. Anyone know about that by any chance?


Can you take FEMA courses and then later have them transcripted or do you have to have that done when you take the tests? IOW, should I hop on over to FEMA and sign up or shoudl I wait until I know where I'm going to use them first?

[momtomany5]

Alissa,

Excellent write-up on the comparisons of the three.

Thanks!

They are about the same as far as difficulty. All three have the typical sort of general education requirements along with requirements within the major and upper level credit. You will be taking a lot of the same exams as the students from the other schools no matter which one you choose. All three schools will take a lot, if not all, of your prior credits.

Some people would prefer COSC because they only require 15 upper level credits, but have stricter general ed. requirements, while others would prefer EC because they only require 3 credits in math and English for general ed., but require 30 upper level credits. It depends on what you perceive to be difficult.

The very best way to decide which one is best for you is to sit down and draw up a degree plan fitting in the credits you already have as best you can for all three schools. Plan out which exams or courses you will use to fulfill requirements.Throw in a cost comparison while you are doing that. Then you will see which school offers you the path of least resistance to getting a degree (fewest courses or exams), as well as which one is within your budget. All three schools have the degree requirements on their websites. (You may have to start a free MyEC account to access the single-subject major requirements on EC's site.)This will help you avoid surprises later. It won't be exact, but it will give you the best idea of which school is for you. I have done this for other people, and I usually found that TESC would require fewer exams/courses, but EC would be cheaper.

However, now that TESC requires 300-level or above courses for upper-level, I think the number and difficulty of exams/courses will be about the same, but TESC will be more expensive for their general degrees. I believe TESC still accepts 200-level as upper level for a single-subject major? If you have a community college near you offering the courses you need then that may be the degree plan that will require the least amount of credit at the 300-level or above, but busy work there will be. History or psychology as a major might work well with this for TESC, since there are so many exams in those two fields. Your best bet for avoiding busy work is to come up with the degree plan that requires mostly exams, not courses. The cost comparison thread NAP posted the link to has several examples of degree plans that are almost all testing-out road maps.

Other comparisons that are often mentioned:

COSC and EC require a pesky Info Lit credit, but TESC doesn't.

COSC and EC graduate students every 3 months, TESC graduates students every four months. [Edit] Excelsior and COSC graduate students every other month, TESC is every three or four months. Oops![End Edit]

COSC and TESC accept CLEP English Comp. w/essay, EC does not. You can still test out of the English requirement with either the ECE or the Uexcel exam.

COSC and EC allow monthly payment plans, TESC does not.

People generally like the names of TESC or COSC better than EC.

TESC accepts raw fema credits (25? 27?), but EC and COSC require that they be transcribed through another school, costing $$. However, COSC and EC both accept more fema credits than TESC once they've been transcribed.

COSC has a capstone course requirement. EC and TESC don't.

TESC accepts some "D" grades, P.E., and those one-credit introduction to college courses, EC doesn't.

EC and COSC award letter grades and give GPAs for prior credit that has been letter-graded, as well as for many exams. TESC only letter grades and awards GPAs for courses taken from TESC.

Customer service comparisons usually favor either COSC or EC, but this is subjective and many posters here have had no trouble with TESC service.

[alissaroot]

wow, alissa that was tremendously helpful to me! Very nearly making EC a slam dunk. The only way I can see that I wouldn't do them, was if the cost of FEMA raw with TESC made them tremendously cheaper/faster. Anyone know about that by any chance?


Can you take FEMA courses and then later have them transcripted or do you have to have that done when you take the tests? IOW, should I hop on over to FEMA and sign up or shoudl I wait until I know where I'm going to use them first?

Using 27 fema credits for free electives at TESC saves about $800-$900 in exam fees, assuming you would use CLEPs or DSSTs to fill your free electives otherwise if you went with EC or COSC. Unfortunately, TESC's enrollment and other fees are about $800 more than EC's or COSC's, so using fema is what make TESC's cost about the same as what EC and COSC are anyway. So it just depends on what kinds of free elective credits you want on your transcript. If you decide to go into emergency management or criminal justice, using the fema at TESC would be a great idea. However, if you plan on a liberal arts major, you may want to fill up your electives at EC or COSC with more Arts & Sciences, preferably in supporting subjects to your major and with letter-graded DSSTs and UExcels if you want to go to grad school (although you can calculate GPA through alternative means if you choose TESC). It just depends on what your goals are and what you plan to do with your degree, and how you want your transcript to look. For some people, the femas are a tremendous time-saver, if they find them easier than arts & science subjects. I didn't have much interest in emergency management, so I only made it through 15 fema before I realized it was easier for me to read a book and take a clep. Everyone is different in which subjects are interesting to them.

You can indeed start taking femas now and have them transcribed later.

Just a note from personal experience* You may also want to consider how many transcripts you will have to request when you apply for grad school, using fema and multiple other outlets besides just CLEPs and DSSTs (Aleks, Straighterline, fema, uexcel, comm. colleges, etc.) can hike up the cost of one grad school application fast. If you get your credits from five vendors, it could cost you $150 or more just to apply to one grad school later on...

[MomOfMany]

Well I don't know about grad school yet but I want to keep my options open.
So I really like the idea of getting a grade for credit exams.
And after all the work, I'd be willing to put in a bit more for a "prettier" transcript with supporting credits instead of FEMA. I'm not even a little interested in criminal justice or emergency mgmt right now.

[alissaroot]

Alissa,

Excellent write-up on the comparisons of the three.

Thanks!

Thanks! Your screen name is so similar to MomOfMany that I thought you were the same person at first glance, oops!

Just to add a few more to the list with regard to transcripts. I didn't add them before because I'm unsure of TESC policy, but TESC students can clarify for us:

EC allows graduates to add credit earned after degree completion to the transcript, not as part of the degree, but as an academic record keeping service, $25 per transcript sent in, which can be handy if you decided to major in, say, psychology but later decide you want, for example, an MBA, so you can add all those business prereqs for your grad school to one transcript. I know both COSC and TESC do "credit banking" and academic record-keeping like EC, but I'm unsure if COSC or TESC does this after graduation?

COSC and EC allow you to have courses removed from your transcript up to 30 days after your official evaluation, so you can prune out bad grades or irrelevant courses. I'm unsure if TESC does this?

[TMW2010]

Alissa,
Thank you for the wonderful information. You've been a big help

Alissa downright rocks! Her posts and experience have made so much of this journey for me much easier than it would have been trying to stumble blindly through.

cheersmate

[alissaroot]

Alissa downright rocks! Her posts and experience have made so much of this journey for me much easier than it would have been trying to stumble blindly through.

cheersmate

Aw, shucks. *blushes* So glad I could help!

[Lindagerr]

The discount at TESC for NJ residents is one of the reasons I went there it is a great deal. Also if you say the whole name Thomas Edison State College it sounds pretty impressive to me.

I am not sure about the credit banking after graduation or the taking things off transcripts I do know they never even put my F in microbiology on my transcript.

Although TESC now requires more upper level credit they also give upper level credit for more exams I did DSST World Religions and got credt for REL-405 and History of Vietnam war was HIS-351 so that can make those upper level credits easier by exam

[BurnieGirl]

They are about the same as far as difficulty. All three have the typical sort of general education requirements along with requirements within the major and upper level credit. You will be taking a lot of the same exams as the students from the other schools no matter which one you choose. All three schools will take a lot, if not all, of your prior credits.

Some people would prefer COSC because they only require 15 upper level credits, but have stricter general ed. requirements, while others would prefer EC because they only require 3 credits in math and English for general ed., but require 30 upper level credits. It depends on what you perceive to be difficult.

The very best way to decide which one is best for you is to sit down and draw up a degree plan fitting in the credits you already have as best you can for all three schools. Plan out which exams or courses you will use to fulfill requirements.Throw in a cost comparison while you are doing that. Then you will see which school offers you the path of least resistance to getting a degree (fewest courses or exams), as well as which one is within your budget. All three schools have the degree requirements on their websites. (You may have to start a free MyEC account to access the single-subject major requirements on EC's site.)This will help you avoid surprises later. It won't be exact, but it will give you the best idea of which school is for you. I have done this for other people, and I usually found that TESC would require fewer exams/courses, but EC would be cheaper.

However, now that TESC requires 300-level or above courses for upper-level, I think the number and difficulty of exams/courses will be about the same, but TESC will be more expensive for their general degrees. I believe TESC still accepts 200-level as upper level for a single-subject major? If you have a community college near you offering the courses you need then that may be the degree plan that will require the least amount of credit at the 300-level or above, but busy work there will be. History or psychology as a major might work well with this for TESC, since there are so many exams in those two fields. Your best bet for avoiding busy work is to come up with the degree plan that requires mostly exams, not courses. The cost comparison thread NAP posted the link to has several examples of degree plans that are almost all testing-out road maps.

Other comparisons that are often mentioned:

COSC and EC require a pesky Info Lit credit, but TESC doesn't.

COSC and EC graduate students every 3 months, TESC graduates students every four months. [Edit] Excelsior and COSC graduate students every other month, TESC is every three or four months. Oops![End Edit]

COSC and TESC accept CLEP English Comp. w/essay, EC does not. You can still test out of the English requirement with either the ECE or the Uexcel exam.

COSC and EC allow monthly payment plans, TESC does not.

People generally like the names of TESC or COSC better than EC.

TESC accepts raw fema credits (25? 27?), but EC and COSC require that they be transcribed through another school, costing $$. However, COSC and EC both accept more fema credits than TESC once they've been transcribed.

COSC has a capstone course requirement. EC and TESC don't.

TESC accepts some "D" grades, P.E., and those one-credit introduction to college courses, EC doesn't.

EC and COSC award letter grades and give GPAs for prior credit that has been letter-graded, as well as for many exams. TESC only letter grades and awards GPAs for courses taken from TESC.

Customer service comparisons usually favor either COSC or EC, but this is subjective and many posters here have had no trouble with TESC service.

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!! cheersmate You did a lot of the work for us!:willynilly: I'm down to two schools out of the three. TESC may not work out for me.