Intro and a few questions

[krm944]

Greetings to everyone. I wanted to make a quick intro and ask a few questions. I found this forum by way of a search for some free CLEP study material searches on Google. For 18.5 years my focus was not on college and I figured I would just start from scratch after I retired from the Navy. As I dug around I learned what an IDIOT I am/was for not doing this sooner!

About 2 weeks ago I went to a college fair on base. I met with the Navy College Counselor and discussed my long term plans/goals. Eventually I will attend law school. At times I think a Tier 3/4 school is my future, but my lawyer really thinks I need to apply to the University of Virginia (ranked #7 Nationally). All that aside, my focus is on my undergrad. With 20 years military experience in electronics, communications and IT, with CompTIA A+, Net+ and Security+ certifications, I have "shopped" my military transcript to potential universities. I approach this like I would buying a house or a car, what will they give me for a "trade in" and what "bells and whistles" are they offering? I am starting in the Comp Sci avenues, but finding that the Psychology programs will get me to law school a semester faster! I am certainly seeking a direct route to law school, transferring as many military credits as possible while still getting a degree with course rigor from an accredited brick and mortar school. Cyber law is something I have considered and aligns with all my experience.

I am working with:
Troy University
Thomas Edison
Regent University
Old Dominion University
UMUC
SNHU
Liberty University
St Leo University

General consensus is that my military experience transfers in as electives courses and clears all the electives from the degree plans, leaving General Ed and Core the credits I need to whittle away at. I am here to CLEP some of the General Ed courses.

As you know this forum is a wealth of info. I am finding some acronyms I'm not familiar with, who has the cheat sheet??

Thanks

Kyle

[SweetSecret]

Welcome to DF! I post occasionally, but not really an expert here per-se. I'm pretty sure we have a wiki page of the acronyms, but in the mean time you may want to check this link:
http://www.degreeforum.net/general-educa...board.html

[yb1]

Caution take what I am about to say with a grain of salt.

My brother got his JD and MBA from Duke. Which is a top 15 school. He also got accepted Columbia and a few other top ones. I will give you some of the advice that he gave me when I was interested in going down a similar path. I will also add to you my personal opinion.

“Go for STEM if you want to go into LAW.” He got into Duke with a bachelor in psychology and international relations but he said if he were to do it all again. He would either do finance or STEM. Since you already have a lot of computer science experience then aim for that. He also made contacts through various hobbies that he had. He networked and that is how he got into Duke.

Now if you're lawyer recommends University of Virginia. It also sounds like you are from Virginia than if I were you I would enroll into NOVA. Great school but it will also give you guaranteed admission into University of Virginia since they have a partnership. Now if you go that route than this forum is going to be pretty meaningless to you once you pass the Gen ed requirements. This will be much longer process but it can be speeded up. You could be applying to UVA very shortly.


Northern Virginia Community College Course Equivalency Guide | StraighterLine Straighterline also has a partnership with NOVA which this is going to be great for you. These courses will transfer over and fulfill more of the degree requirements.

http://www.straighterline.com/colleges/n...y-college/

And you would want to look at their clep policy.

CLEP Testing :: Northern Virginia Community College

Now in this case if it is anything like Maryland systems then you will have to enroll into NOVA and sign up for the guaranteed admission to UVA (in maryland it is called the MTAP program which gets you access to UMD College Park). I assume you would need to have above a 3.0. Since you won't have as many credits for grades. You might just want to get your associates from NOVA and plan to transfer the following semester. You do your last two semesters at UVA. During which you network. You meet people. You get internships. You connect with the professors from the law school. You buckle down. and well..


Now Kyle if you don't want to go the long road and want to try and go for something else. Then yeah UMUC, Liberty, or the big three might be right up your alley. Check out the wiki for the big three.

You can start off by getting some of the free courses. Your certs and military credits would also add credit. I also believe that you could do a portfolio and if you do a good enough job then you can get a lot of credits.

If you go for the faster route. Go ahead and knock out KPLA (3), Aleks (12-15) for 20 dollar math credits. Search free ethic course and take that. Do the teex cyber security track (6 credits) , NFA
And then after that start taking cleps and dsst exams.

Also you might be interested in WGU or Hodges University (UPOWER program). These are competency based and done at your own pace. You pay for 6 months and you can do as many credits as you can. but since you already have a bunch of credits you would be miles ahead of other people.

Use the search function. Type in free credits. Stick around and ask questions.

But yeah that is my two cents on the subject.

[dfrecore]

I'm going to add to the "cheat sheet" thread SweetSecret linked, and say:
RA - Regionally Accredited
NA - Nationally accredited

And tell you that you will definitely want to go with an RA school for your BA/BS, as that's what most of the schools you're looking at will want to see.

Also, I want to add that you will be one of the people that needs a good GPA, so you'll want to take that into consideration as you go. You will need real classes with (good) grades on a transcript or two.

Good luck!

[Prloko]

I am going to add to yb1's advice. If you are in the NVA area like I am, go ahead and start at NVCC or one of the other VA CCs. They are low cost and accept a ton of CLEP (NVCC accepts all but 15 for an AA). They have guaranteed transfer agreements with the local Unis. Remember that the local NOVA law schools are all highly ranked and extremely tough to get into, and your military experience is not unique in the area that it would be much of an advantage for adcoms. Your school choice may play big into what school accepts you. Now although, there are many lawyers who got the Bachelor's from the school you mentioned above, to get into programs like GTown or UVA, you are going to need a stronger school, with a strong GPA supplemented by a strong LSAT.

Please keep that in mind.

[krm944]

Caution take what I am about to say with a grain of salt.

My brother got his JD and MBA from Duke. Which is a top 15 school. He also got accepted Columbia and a few other top ones. I will give you some of the advice that he gave me when I was interested in going down a similar path. I will also add to you my personal opinion.

“Go for STEM if you want to go into LAW.” He got into Duke with a bachelor in psychology and international relations but he said if he were to do it all again. He would either do finance or STEM. Since you already have a lot of computer science experience then aim for that. He also made contacts through various hobbies that he had. He networked and that is how he got into Duke.

Now if you're lawyer recommends University of Virginia. It also sounds like you are from Virginia than if I were you I would enroll into NOVA. Great school but it will also give you guaranteed admission into University of Virginia since they have a partnership. Now if you go that route than this forum is going to be pretty meaningless to you once you pass the Gen ed requirements. This will be much longer process but it can be speeded up. You could be applying to UVA very shortly.


Northern Virginia Community College Course Equivalency Guide | StraighterLine Straighterline also has a partnership with NOVA which this is going to be great for you. These courses will transfer over and fulfill more of the degree requirements.

Northern Virginia Community College & StraighterLine - Degree Savings Partnership | StraighterLine

And you would want to look at their clep policy.

CLEP Testing :: Northern Virginia Community College

Now in this case if it is anything like Maryland systems then you will have to enroll into NOVA and sign up for the guaranteed admission to UVA (in maryland it is called the MTAP program which gets you access to UMD College Park). I assume you would need to have above a 3.0. Since you won't have as many credits for grades. You might just want to get your associates from NOVA and plan to transfer the following semester. You do your last two semesters at UVA. During which you network. You meet people. You get internships. You connect with the professors from the law school. You buckle down. and well..


Now Kyle if you don't want to go the long road and want to try and go for something else. Then yeah UMUC, Liberty, or the big three might be right up your alley. Check out the wiki for the big three.

You can start off by getting some of the free courses. Your certs and military credits would also add credit. I also believe that you could do a portfolio and if you do a good enough job then you can get a lot of credits.

If you go for the faster route. Go ahead and knock out KPLA (3), Aleks (12-15) for 20 dollar math credits. Search free ethic course and take that. Do the teex cyber security track (6 credits) , NFA
And then after that start taking cleps and dsst exams.

Also you might be interested in WGU or Hodges University (UPOWER program). These are competency based and done at your own pace. You pay for 6 months and you can do as many credits as you can. but since you already have a bunch of credits you would be miles ahead of other people.

Use the search function. Type in free credits. Stick around and ask questions.

But yeah that is my two cents on the subject.

Didn't stop at the grain....took the whole shaker. After thinking about it, STEM it will be!!! I will focus more on CLEP until I find the college that gives me what I want.

I am in Norfolk.

Old Dominion University just offered some suggestions for some Engineering Programs, I have to dig through them. St Leo has to get back to me on the Comp Sci and UMUC owes me some numbers after looking over my Joint Services Transcript.

[krm944]

Your school choice may play big into what school accepts you. Now although, there are many lawyers who got the Bachelor's from the school you mentioned above, to get into programs like GTown or UVA, you are going to need a stronger school, with a strong GPA supplemented by a strong LSAT.

Please keep that in mind.

Totally understand, and not seeking the Excelsior or Phoenix University plans.

[Togas]

I'm in Norfolk as well. Currently going to ODU

I agree with the advice of going the CC route if you want to go to UVA for your law stuff. With that in mind TCC would be the local option. Pretty good school too. So far the only teachers that I've really liked (With exception my Calc teacher) are the ones that teach at both ODU and TCC for my Engineering courses.

If you are going to ODU, and doing an engineering type degree make sure you talk to the program heads for advice. Some of the counselors that are assigned to help military with STEM fields are somewhat out of touch. My friend ended up taking 15 credits last summer and ended up failing one class. The summer terms at ODU are already intense if you are doing STEM stuff. (He took, Physics 1, Calc 1, an Engineering Management class that called for a >50 page report and 2 electronics classes). His eye has not stopped twitching since Aug. (I'm not joking)