Free Winter term for Sophia members, Strayer U

[Goldilocks!]

ylmir - They mentioned that books are included in the free term, so that's excellent! The bookstore tells me I have a limit to spend on books. It also looks like you can purchase additional items like calculators, flash drives, and writing resources. If your course needs an access code to Wiley, ALEKS, etc., these are also purchased through the bookstore which is nice. You can also use their cost calculator to see what materials are required for other classes (since it preloads your courses). That could come in handy if you want to study for a challenge exam.

It also looks like I can just register for challenge exams and they use ProctorU. I read on their message boards that they recommend discussing challenge exams with your coach first, but it doesn't seem to be a requirement. They have a pretty active message board community.

There are also quite a few upcoming webinars about getting started and being successful, a new student checklist, and a self-paced orientation.

Rachel - I think I filled out the forms from the email they sent me. Then an advisor emailed me (along with some spam-y looking emails). I replied and that got the ball rolling. They'll send you some Docusign forms to fill out. They didn't notify me about my transfer credits, but once you are enrolled you can see them on your profile.

[rachel83az]

Hm, I don't have any special forms. I have "Hi, Rachel, learn how you can transfer to Strayer!", "A college degree. Without all the $$$." and "Why wait? Finish your bachelor's degree for $20K" with links to "Apply Now" in the emails.

[bjcheung77]

Those are their advertising emails, I get so many a day from various institutions of higher education. Oh wells, lucky I signed up with my "other" email address, as I sign up for things with different addresses, depending on what they are...

[eriehiker]

Okay, so I logged into iCampus. That is Strayer's learning management system. I used the pull-down menu under "Campus and Library" to find the following instructions about taking the challenge exams:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tNsQQZU...sp=sharing

Basically, if you've ever used ProctorU before, you already have an account there. You can use the one you have. Or, if you haven't used ProctorU, you can make a new account there. Once you login to your ProctorU account, you have to go into your own settings - I just clicked on my name at the top right - and I found the option to add a new school to my ProctorU account. I did this and added Strayer University.

Once I did this, I was able to just go to the normal ProctorU scheduling system and schedule an exam. It is actually a pretty impressive list of challenge exams and I decided to pick one that I thought would be easy. I picked the "College Algebra with Applications" exam. There was an immediate opening and I thought, what the hey, let's take it.

Everything was going great with the proctor until he tried to load the exam for me. Strayer apparently uses ALEKS for this test. The proctor pulled up the ALEKS page, entered the code that he was given by Strayer and it didn't work. Probably just a bad code, but it meant that I was not taking that exam tonight.

As a proof of concept, I don't think that there is much of anything stopping anyone who is now in Strayer's system from just taking all the exams. I would say that I think these exams will take some studying. I am planning to pick a couple that I don't really care about as test cases to see how these exams are structured.

[ylmir]

I just finally got my enrollment through and am scheduled for two very basic courses, ECO110 and WRK100 the most basic that they could get me into considering my initial credit evaluation. they are essentially "success" courses about the basics of personal finance and good habits to have in life. I was automatically enrolled in them with not even a chance for input in the process, so I replied to my advisor very politely and asked if I could get into different courses, saying that I would like to see and evaluate Strayer's best offerings, and that these would likely not be a good representation of their broader curriculum. Hopefully he will let me switch out. I also didn't get any bookstore credit yet, unfortunately. I will be back as soon as I have an update.

[rachel83az]

Just replied to the first not completely generic email Strayer has sent me. Fingers crossed that they allow me to sign up. With the TESU fiasco, having a few extra RA credits as a safety net would be nice.

[dfrecore]

Just replied to the first not completely generic email Strayer has sent me. Fingers crossed that they allow me to sign up. With the TESU fiasco, having a few extra RA credits as a safety net would be nice.

That's a very good plan!  And if you can take a challenge exam or two, that would also be great.

[rachel83az]

Just replied to the first not completely generic email Strayer has sent me. Fingers crossed that they allow me to sign up. With the TESU fiasco, having a few extra RA credits as a safety net would be nice.

That's a very good plan!  And if you can take a challenge exam or two, that would also be great.

That's the plan, anyway. At $20 a pop, I might even take a couple random exams just for the heck of it. I've spent more on pizza than the cost of one of their exams...

[rachel83az]

Submitted an actual application to Strayer just now. According to the email I got, the auto-enrollment thing is something you can opt into/out of, so that's nice. I will not be opting into that if I am accepted for the winter term! Now I'm just waiting for the email saying that my application was received so that I can login and continue with the process.

[Goldilocks!]

Does anyone else who enrolled in the free term have an account balance showing in their dashboard? It's showing the full cost of courses in my account. I reached out to my "coach" last week with no response. I submitted a support ticket about it a day or two ago and no response there either. I don't want to buy my course materials or even open my laptop until I know this is straightened out. Also, I just noticed my coach is now changed to someone else. I read about their lack of communication and switching coaches on Strayer's own message boards.