HI New to the Thread

[mapalo]

Hi all

I am new to the discussion forum. I read through it about two weeks ago and for the first time I heard about Excelsior College. I am a student at University of Phoenix, and paying about $1450.00 per three credits. Since finding out about Excelsior college I am highly considering transfering there and hopefully finish my degree quicker and with less debt in student loan.
My husband who's an MBA student at Harvard thinks this is a big Joke bigger the University of Phoenix. But I strongly feel this is the way for me to take before I go for my MBA.

Could someone please give me some positve words, some encouragement. Also I want to major in Finance would this be a wise decision to make with Excelsior college or should I just do General Business.

Mapalo

[ShotoJuku]

[SIZE="2"]As a proud graduate of Excelsior College [COLOR="navy"]I can assure you that I worked hard to attain my degree and am extremely satisfied with the schools background and authenticity.

As for being a joke, yes - I agree! With my completed degree I obtained a tremendous raise and I am laughing all the way to the bank!!! (Hopefully being read as sarcasm) [/COLOR][/SIZE]

[kckusek]

Hi all

I am new to the discussion forum. I read through it about two weeks ago and for the first time I heard about Excelsior College. I am a student at University of Phoenix, and paying about $1450.00 per three credits. Since finding out about Excelsior college I am highly considering transfering there and hopefully finish my degree quicker and with less debt in student loan.
My husband who's an MBA student at Harvard thinks this is a big Joke bigger the University of Phoenix. But I strongly feel this is the way for me to take before I go for my MBA.

Could someone please give me some positve words, some encouragement. Also I want to major in Finance would this be a wise decision to make with Excelsior college or should I just do General Business.

Mapalo

Hello Mapalo,

I understand your concern as I was in a similar situation. I started my Masters at UOP and after one year of studying, UOP told me, that my education in Germany is not equal to a Bachelors in the US, and therefore, I can not continue my Masters.
UOP from that point on, was no help at all. They just ignored my calls, my petitions, just everything I tried.
After searching the web, I found Excelsior College and I'm in the process of completing my Bachelors (hopefully within the next 4 weeks).
Excelsior is extremly helpful with any question and request. They are accepted by the Department of Education, which in my case means, I can continue my Masters at (almost) any school, I can get my teacher credential, etc.
Don't be fooled. The work you need to do to pass these tests are at least the level of the work you do at UOP. You don't get the credits presented on a silver plate; you will need to work for them. Having said that, it will be much cheaper then UOP and depending on your determination and test taking ability, also faster.

Good luck,

kckusek

[sgloer]

Pretty much anyone who has time and money invested in a traditional college education is going to look down on a non-traditional online degree. The more expensive and prestigious the traditional school they're going to is, the more they are going to feel this.

Sure, Excelsior is not going to have the impressiveness factor of Harvard, but to most employers, Excelsior's going to look no different to them from your average college. Most of them probably wouldn't even realize that it's an online school--versus U of P, which has wider name recognition as an online program.

[SimonTam]

All of the above plus:

Excelsior is older than the University of Phoenix
Excelsior at one time was a state college (granted independence in 1998).
Excelsior is, to the best of my knowledge, a non-profit.

Both Excelsior and UOP are regionally accredited. Neither school has professional accreditation for their business programs. Technically, both schools should have equal footing in regards to further prospects. Taking that into consideration, which would be better? Spending $4,000 to $5,000 for a degree from Excelsior or spending $30,000 to $40,000 for a degree from UOP?

My recommendation is, since your desire is to get a Masters in Finance, determine where you want to get that degree. Then simply ask them if a degree in general business from Excelsior is an acceptable degree for entrance. If they say yes, get it in writing, if possible.

The reason I say general business is because you can probably finish all the requirements mostly by testing in about 6 to 8 months (with a lot of dedication). You will probably miss Fall enrollment into an MBA program, but it will give you plenty of time to prepare for a Spring enrollment. That is, if the school you want to attend has a Spring enrollment for their MBA program. Not all schools do.

Another reason to take general business is it may be difficult to find the required courses for the finance major online. I just did a short search and I could not locate an online or correspondence course that would satisfy the Advanced Corporate Finance requirement for the finance degree. That doesn't mean they don't exist, but I just couldn't find one. It's definitely going to take some planning on your part.

As for your husband, the current students and alumni of Excelsior on this board have no delusions that our degree is as good as a degree from Harvard. But tell him not to be surprised if there is an alumni of Harvard that is also an alumni of Excelsior. BTW, I found one on the web.

[mapalo]

Thank you Everyone

This feels like family, I really appreciate your encouragement, as a matter of fact I have already recieved the application forms from Excelsior and My official transcript from the University of Phoenix. I will be posting the forms on Monday hopefully I will get the Unofficial evalution with three weeks.

Any word of advice, whether to enroll at Excelsior now, or to wait until I take more exams and enroll later to save some money

[barcotta]

I'm an Excelsior student as well and I've done fairly extensive research over the course of the past 10-15 years. I've looked at this from all angles to try to determine to my satisfaction (and others) that Excelsior is legit. There are many compelling points that can be made, but for me, the most compelling is the inclusion of Excelsior, along with TESC and Charter Oaks, in the College Board CLEP book. Ask your husband if the AP, SAT, etc. programs are jokes. If he agrees they're legit, then show him how the same board that is responsible for these programs endorses Excelsior. As mentioned earlier, Excelsior started as Regents College--sponsored by the State of New York. The other external degree schools are still state-sponsored. Are they sponsoring jokes? Finally, I spent a lot of time looking for ANYTHING derogatory about these programs and came up with ZILCH--except for vague notions from people with absolutely no knowledge of alternative forms of education. I still search the news on occasion looking for anything critical. Last thing I found was Excelsior joining forces with Price Chopper supermarkets to provide educational programs from which employees may begin earning their degrees. Price Chopper is a major grocer in upstate New York--perhaps that's a joke as well??? In any event, this is an important issue and I would encourage anyone and everyone who is reading this thread to contribute anything credible that casts doubt as to the legitimacy of the these external degree programs. This could be a great resource for people trying to make an educated decision.

[barcotta]

Thank you Everyone

This feels like family, I really appreciate your encouragement, as a matter of fact I have already recieved the application forms from Excelsior and My official transcript from the University of Phoenix. I will be posting the forms on Monday hopefully I will get the Unofficial evalution with three weeks.

Any word of advice, whether to enroll at Excelsior now, or to wait until I take more exams and enroll later to save some money

In short, the main advantage to enrolling immediately is to preserve the terms of the degree you're pursuing as they currently exist. I understand that certain criteria can change over time--but if you're enrolled you will be grandfathered in. I believe Online degrees by distance learning. BA in 4 Weeks and bain4weeks.com - online BA degrees and online graduate degees by examination. has some information on this.

[Librevore]

Good discussion.

To add a bit, I've been told recently by a couple of my friends that there are some really exciting things happening on the federal level in regards to distance learning. My friends are employed by one of the local universities here and they are working on further developing the schools technology in order to be compliant in time. The Federal Dept. of Education is requiring ALL accredited universities and colleges to be able to provide a certain percentage of their curriculum online by 2010.

There are also several interesting articles and policy reports at the Dept. of Educations website regarding online learning. There is a school district in, I think it was Michigan, that is requiring all high schools to deliver at least one course online to their students. There is also a group of colleges & universities nationwide that are being used as test cases for the government to determine how to better monitor distance education to insure quality education and funding. It looks like more and more of these programs will be eligible for financial aid, etc. as they determine how to reform their present policies. The government sees this move toward online teaching to be a great positive as it will open up quality education to many citizens who are not able to continue their educations in traditional ways. Groups specifically mentioned on their site included the disabled and working people with families (that's most of us ).

As Harvard, Yale and EVERYONE else who wants to keep their accreditation will be offering more of their coursework online, it would seem that the present stigma will eventually decrease. Especially since the professors themselves are taking more and more online courses to fulfill their own ongoing creditionaling requirements. Times are definately changing.

[barcotta]

That reminds me of another compelling reason to accept Excelsior and the others as legit. Guess who is one of their biggest proponents--the US Military! The military directs their personnel to Excelsior to complete their degrees. How do I know? Well, it's actually no secret. The DANTES tests are sponsored by the military to, in part, translate college-level knowledge. In addition, Excelsior translates many military programs directly to credit units. I understand that enlistees don't even have to pay for the tests.

That all sounds well and good--but how do I know the military values degrees through Excelsior? I have two brother-in-laws who received their degrees through Excelsior. The first was in officers candidate school in the Navy when he injured his back. The Navy actually brought the tests to him in his hospital bed and those tests--combined with his nuclear training, earned him a B.S. from Excelsior. They arranged for the whole thing! He then took his degree and got a job with the Secret Service, where he's been for the last eight years.

His older brother most recently was employed by the Dept. of Defense. His offices were in the Pentagon and he was employed as the Director of Joint Counter-Intelligence Command. All with HIS Excelsior degree (actually I think it was still Regents College when he graduated). Convinced yet?

-Michael