How long does it take.....??

[splirow]

For everyone here who has used parts or all of the below platforms for ACE credits, on average, how long does it take? I know it depends on particular subject/course. Just a good estimate. it would be nice to if you can share the duration for completion.

Sophias - 
Straightliner - 
InstantCert - 
Study.com - 
CSMLearn - 
Aleks - 
Coopersmith -


Davar Academy - 
Teex - 
TECEP - 

Add if missing.

[Dorothy44]

For everyone here who has used parts or all of the below platforms for ACE credits, on average, how long does it take? I know it depends on particular subject/course. Just a good estimate. it would be nice to if you can share the duration for completion.

Sophias - Most classes averaged a week.  A few courses would take longer if they have papers, touchstones, etc.  I do not recommend the English courses, but most courses are great!!  You can mostly only do the lower level courses, and don't forget you still need to get 24 regionally accredited from somewhere so you have to choose carefully on those. Did 42 credits here when they were free.  
Straightliner - n/a
InstantCert - n/a
Study.com - This is great for upper level courses.  Most UL about 2 weeks including the papers if you work mostly full time on these no counting weekends.  
CSMLearn - n/a
Aleks - n/a
Coopersmith -n/a
CLEP - Did a ton here too.  The advantage again was free from Modernstates.org.  This was the easiest to get the English, Literature, and other LL general credits.  Study on your own, and take a single pass/fail exam.  The time depends on how long you want to spend studying anywhere from 2 weeks to a month.
Davar Academy - n/a
Teex - n/a
TECEP - n/a

Add if missing.

Sophias - Most classes averaged a week.  A few courses would take longer if they have papers, touchstones, etc.  I do not recommend the English courses, but most courses are great!!  You can mostly only do the lower level courses, and don't forget you still need to get 24 regionally accredited from somewhere so you have to choose carefully on those. Did a ton here when they were free.  
Straightliner - n/a
InstantCert - n/a
Study.com - This is great for upper level courses.  Most UL about 2 weeks including the papers if you work mostly full time on these no counting weekends.  
CSMLearn - n/a
Aleks - n/a
Coopersmith -n/a
CLEP - Did a ton here too.  The advantage again was free from Modernstates.org.  This was the easiest to get the English, Literature, and other LL general credits.  Study on your own, and take a single pass/fail exam.  The time depends on how long you want to spend studying anywhere from 2 weeks to a month.
Davar Academy - n/a
Teex - n/a
TECEP - n/a

[rachel83az]

This definitely depends heavily on how much time you have to invest in studying.

Sophia: Finishing everything at Sophia should take 4-6 months. It'll be shorter if you skip the English Comp courses and take a TECEP instead. Without English Comp, it'll probably take 2-3 months. A handful of people have completed everything (except English Comp) in a single month.
StraighterLine: I think 2-3 courses a month is not unusual. But you might need a couple of months if you're doing something more difficult, such as Calc II.
InstantCert: It should take you about a month to complete each course.
Study.com: There is a hard limit of 5 courses allowed per month. Depending on the course and the difficulty, you may only be able to complete 1 or 2 per month.
CSMLearn: If you are good at math, you can complete this in about 8 hours. If math isn't a strong point for you, it may take a few weeks to go all the way through.
ALEKS: Some people have done an ALEKS course in under a month. More advanced math may take a few months.
Coopersmith: I'm not sure if anyone's ever said specifically how long it took them to do Coopersmith. I would guess anywhere from a couple of weeks to a month or two.
Davar: Same as Coopersmith.
TEEX: The free ones each take a couple of days. The paid ones are a couple of weeks.
TECEP: This one really, REALLY depends. Network Technology is probably considered the hardest one. People have studied for weeks and weeks and not passed. English Comp I/II are both super easy. Some people have taken them cold and passed easily.

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You can mostly only do the lower level courses, and don't forget you still need to get 24 regionally accredited from somewhere so you have to choose carefully on those.

The 24 RA credit thing only applies if you are going to TESU or COSC. It does not apply to Excelsior. It also doesn't exactly apply to UMPI either.

[ctcarl]

Sophia - they give you up to 60 days to complete a course.  In most cases, a week of part-time work should be enough to complete any given 3-credit Sophia course without Touchstones, or assignments.  With the English Comp courses, 60 days may not be enough.  There are multiple Touchstones which have to be completed and take a week or longer to be graded.  If you do them all in order and don't work on them concurrently, you could have more than a month just in waiting time.  You can likely do the entire Sophia catalog in a year at a relaxed pace.  If you're a good self-study and have a little more time to devote to learning, you can finish in a few months.  A number of us here have done just that. 
 
CSMLearn - this one is unique.  It has many benefits and I recommend it, but I also found it frustrating, in that it zeroes in on your weaknesses and hammers you on them.  Yes, I realize that's what it's supposed to do, but it didn't make it any less frustrating.  I think it took me three or four evenings of work or so, call it twelve to fifteen hours.   

Coopersmith - speed is up to you.  Coursework is 100% self paced.  There's very little hand-holding.  Think of Coopersmith as a CLEP or similar exam that you can take at home, that also comes with an short, highly-targeted study guide.  For some courses, other materials are provided as well, and of course there are suggested textbooks which you can borrow, rent or purchase on your own.  I was typically able to study for and pass most Coopersmith exams in a week to ten days, making them an excellent option for UL credits, in my opinion.   One catch is that their exams require the use of ProctorFU, which charges you extra fees to schedule an exam in less than 72 hours, and even more to take it in less than 2 hours.  In my case, every single time I tried to schedule an exam between 2 and 72 hours, they charged me the higher rate, and you have no choice in the matter.  They just add it to your "cart", take it or leave it.  Good luck arguing with a website that "20 or 30 hours away isn't less than two hours".

Davar Academy - identical to Coopersmith, except that you are given a choice between ProctorFU and RPNow, which allows you to take an exam as soon as you're ready without the payment of extortionate fees.  

TEEX - typical of self-paced courses.  1-credit courses, as you would expect, tended to take me a couple of days, a week to ten days for 3-credit courses.  The problem with TEEX is the complete lack of consistency from one course to the next.  Additionally, the delivery system tends to be rinky-dink and riddled with errors.  In terms of speed, one benefit to TEEX is that there's no exam proctoring to schedule.

Hope this helps!  

[ss20ts]

I've only done Sophia. I've completed classes with them in a few hours up to 4 weeks. The ones that took me 4 weeks, I worked on about 6 hours a day. It all depends on the topic. Some I have a lot of experience with and others none. It also depends on one's interest level. If it's a class that you're not excited to take, then chances are it'll take you longer. There really is no one answer about how long any of the courses will take from any provider.

[bjcheung77]

LOL, I'm not sure how people get this confused as I keep seeing repeating info - it's Straighter-Line not Straight-Liner... anyways, I would refrain from looking at so many providers. You should be looking at the school of choice, as if you choose COSC/WGU/UMPI, they will not accept NCCRS, so you can scrap those providers from your list and just focus on the ACE options. Next up, if you're going for cheap/easy/fast, then the only options you should look at are the following. Sophia.org for Lower Level and Study.com for Upper Level. Bam! You're done, I would only recommend Saylor for UL /StraighterLine for LL if you can't find it at Sophia.org or Study.com... else, too many providers, too many options, too many mistakes... Keep It Simple!

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One more thing to note, COSC/TESU now require 30 RA credits, so that means, you must take it from a community college or university, some challenge exams will work so you can add UEXCELS to the TECEPS above. Generally I would recommend you find the program/school of choice and work the degree plan accordingly, asking for too much info at a time will just get you overloaded with non usable information. So, find the degree program/school you want and work backwards towards the plan and providers that they accept...

[monchevy]

LOL, I'm not sure how people get this confused as I keep seeing repeating info - it's Straighter-Line not Straight-Liner... 

And honestly, it would really help new people in terms of searching for info here and elsewhere if everyone would stop using "inside jokes" and nicknames to refer to things (like "ProctorFU," for instance). It just causes confusion and frustration for those who need to find out about these things.

[williamskm11]

For everyone here who has used parts or all of the below platforms for ACE credits, on average, how long does it take? I know it depends on particular subject/course. Just a good estimate. it would be nice to if you can share the duration for completion.
 
Straightline - My experience was using Straighterline. I wanted to make a career change and ended up going with them due to the affordability factor and the many courses they offered. I am now currently in chiropractic school largely due to the streamline process of using striaghterline to finish all of my remaining prerequisites (while paying in cash). 

To answer your question: I was able to complete 7 classes within about 10 months (4 of which were full classes: Biology, Chemistry, A&P I and A&2. 3 of which were labs). I was working full time and also have a little kiddo at home. Some months I could push through more material than others, the beauty of self paced learning.

Hope that is helpful! 10/10 would recommend Straighterline, let me know if you have any followup questions.