Liberal Arts Program

[Avidbus]

Hey all. I’m hopefully enrolling soon. My question has anyone been successful in transferring all 113 credits for the B.S Liberal Arts degree? I’m looking at bringing in Sophia credits mostly. Does anyone have experience in courses not officially listed on the Sophia Transfer chart from excelsior? These can be LL. Are the Lawshelf platform courses particularly difficult? I’m potentially needing 1-2 of those courses. Oh I also have a 200ish Fiction course from a brick & motor that can possibly used from an UL (it has elsewhere). Also, does Excelsior routinely give credits for an UL course completed elsewhere that was 6cc. 

My second inquiry is that has anyone taken the cornerstone, capstone, and information literacy courses at Excelsior? Are these difficult per se? That is to say is it pretty easy to make a C in these classes w/out over excursion.

[bjcheung77]

@Avidbus, You really need to decide for yourself if taking Excelsior or UMPI would be a better fit for your learning style. It's great to ask questions, but without much info to gauge how well you did with your previous studies, it's going to be difficult to advise or assist you in deciding. I would take some time deciding, reviewing posts...

The choice is really up to you, some say the capstone alone at Excelsior is more work than the entire 30 credits at UMPI, thus, by adding the Info Lit and Cornerstone in a previous term, you'll be taking the harder and longer route, not to mention, it'll be at about 4K when you complete the classes at Excelsior vs 3K for 2 sessions at UMPI.

Your UMPI thread from roughly a year ago: https://www.degreeforum.net/mybb/Thread-...ssion-Info

[Dnightowl]

Hey all. I’m hopefully enrolling soon. My question has anyone been successful in transferring all 113 credits for the B.S Liberal Arts degree? I’m looking at bringing in Sophia credits mostly. Does anyone have experience in courses not officially listed on the Sophia Transfer chart from excelsior? These can be LL. Are the Lawshelf platform courses particularly difficult? I’m potentially needing 1-2 of those courses. Oh I also have a 200ish Fiction course from a brick & motor that can possibly used from an UL (it has elsewhere). Also, does Excelsior routinely give credits for an UL course completed elsewhere that was 6cc. 

My second inquiry is that has anyone taken the cornerstone, capstone, and information literacy courses at Excelsior? Are these difficult per se? That is to say is it pretty easy to make a C in these classes w/out over excursion.

I concur with BJCheung. UMPI may be a better fit for you. I am currently enrolled in a bachelor program at Excelsior, and I completed my Associate degree through them in 2019. The information literacy course is pretty easy. However, the Cornerstone B course is unnecessarily extensive. You will spend the entire course building a final report. It's pretty monotonous.

[Avidbus]

I sampled Umpi.. Make no mistake it’s generally the better deal, and I just might return to them better/focused and choose that option.

figured taking 2 classes via Excelsior as opposed to the 10 at Umpi was nice. I don’t mind doing the work as long as it’s not difficult in nature. One can lose efficiency when and if they become lazy/lose motivation in a self-paced competency based setting, something I’m concerned about.

Hopefully I’m able to transfer the max of 113 credits if I choose excelsior. My background is stints at brick and motor, AP, and more recently the online learning experience.

As far as financials, I’ll be using FA. I believe you’re right, it’s around 400 and sme change per credit at excelsior, using their Sophia partnership discount. For 7 credits, it’s not too bad. I’ve been muti-tasking work and school and not fulfilling the $1500 adequately per sem would be a deal breaker tho.

I really want to get done with the bachelors portion of my life. It can really be a motivating factor when at the table, especially for me as I’m prob transferring back into the corporate world, for the time being.

A bonus may be is (for what it’s worth) the excelsior degree is a b.s vs umpi and others bls or ba degrees. I guess it’s just my preference.

Either way, wish me luck.

Just thought I’d inquire with people whom have actual experience with excelsior first, to get my feet wet of sorts.

I’ll post my degree audit here for yall’ to take a look at and review when I have some more free time.

Thanks!!

[bjcheung77]

Ding ding, that's the thing with competency based programs, you actually are trying to finish before the next session and therefore, sometimes rushing things. It really depends on the student and their commitments, study habits, time management, etc, as long as you get to the goal of completing the degree, that's all that matters... I think if you take the 30 credits at UMPI, you can hack it so if you ever wanted to do a Masters, you can do the UMPI MAOL by taking 3-4 classes that can transfer from the BA to MA. Excelsior doesn't have that option, you'll have to go a different route...

[Robinred2404]

I didn't get 113 transferred, but I got 95. I had a few classes rejected because they were lower-level, and I had already met my lower-level requirements. As for Sophia, you'll need to make sure you get your upper-level credits if you want all 113 transfer credits. I'm not sure that many Sophia courses are upper-level. I'm currently taking my upper-level courses from study.com using the approved courses.

I'm attaching my evaluation if that helps. I did a few Sophia courses, but most of my courses were from brick-and-mortar colleges, with the majority coming from my Associate's Degree.



  Transfer Eval.pdf (Size: 636.75 KB / Downloads: 70)

[browniebo]

Hey all. I’m hopefully enrolling soon. My question has anyone been successful in transferring all 113 credits for the B.S Liberal Arts degree? I’m looking at bringing in Sophia credits mostly. Does anyone have experience in courses not officially listed on the Sophia Transfer chart from excelsior? These can be LL. Are the Lawshelf platform courses particularly difficult? I’m potentially needing 1-2 of those courses. Oh I also have a 200ish Fiction course from a brick & motor that can possibly used from an UL (it has elsewhere). Also, does Excelsior routinely give credits for an UL course completed elsewhere that was 6cc. 

My second inquiry is that has anyone taken the cornerstone, capstone, and information literacy courses at Excelsior? Are these difficult per se? That is to say is it pretty easy to make a C in these classes w/out over excursion.

I successfully transferred 113 credits to Excelsior. I used Sophia, Study, and CLEP. Typically, Excelsior only accepts credits on their transfer page. They did not take any Sophia courses as upper level for me. If you align upper level Study courses with the Excelsior transfer chart, you can get all UL except the required credits at Excelsior there.

I took the capstone and info literacy course and thought they were decent, the capstone has me struggling more. I had all A's before I started and I will probably be lucky to leave the capstone with a B. If your goal is to make a C, it is most likely possible.

[browniebo]

Hey all. I’m hopefully enrolling soon. My question has anyone been successful in transferring all 113 credits for the B.S Liberal Arts degree? I’m looking at bringing in Sophia credits mostly. Does anyone have experience in courses not officially listed on the Sophia Transfer chart from excelsior? These can be LL. Are the Lawshelf platform courses particularly difficult? I’m potentially needing 1-2 of those courses. Oh I also have a 200ish Fiction course from a brick & motor that can possibly used from an UL (it has elsewhere). Also, does Excelsior routinely give credits for an UL course completed elsewhere that was 6cc. 

My second inquiry is that has anyone taken the cornerstone, capstone, and information literacy courses at Excelsior? Are these difficult per se? That is to say is it pretty easy to make a C in these classes w/out over excursion.

Also- MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ALL 113 CREDITS BEFORE ENROLLING!

Excelsior charges enrolled students a $300 fee to send transcripts in. It has definitely thrown a wrench in my plan to save money so be sure that you have everything before you apply!

[SCYankee]

Hey all. I’m hopefully enrolling soon. My question has anyone been successful in transferring all 113 credits for the B.S Liberal Arts degree? I’m looking at bringing in Sophia credits mostly. Does anyone have experience in courses not officially listed on the Sophia Transfer chart from excelsior? These can be LL. Are the Lawshelf platform courses particularly difficult? I’m potentially needing 1-2 of those courses. Oh I also have a 200ish Fiction course from a brick & motor that can possibly used from an UL (it has elsewhere). Also, does Excelsior routinely give credits for an UL course completed elsewhere that was 6cc. 

My second inquiry is that has anyone taken the cornerstone, capstone, and information literacy courses at Excelsior? Are these difficult per se? That is to say is it pretty easy to make a C in these classes w/out over excursion.

I successfully transferred 113 credits to Excelsior. I used Sophia, Study, and CLEP. Typically, Excelsior only accepts credits on their transfer page. They did not take any Sophia courses as upper level for me. If you align upper level Study courses with the Excelsior transfer chart, you can get all UL except the required credits at Excelsior there.

I took the capstone and info literacy course and thought they were decent, the capstone has me struggling more. I had all A's before I started and I will probably be lucky to leave the capstone with a B. If your goal is to make a C, it is most likely possible.

That's the tough part of Excelsior, as far as planning which courses to take. I'm trying to strategize the BS in Business, but Excelsior doesn't make it very clear which SDC courses fill the Business reqs of this degree. It's not like TESU where the page says this course comes in as this course. The SDC page for Excelsior just says this SDC courses comes in as this category.

I contacted them about whether I should transfer existing credits or wait until I complete what I think I need in SDC. They said it's free the first time, and $300 for additional transfers, but that if I do it now, an advisor would be able to specify which SDC courses I could take.

But I've read that some of the advisors there aren't too helpful. So I'm a little unsure of which route to take.