Competency Based Programs

[ss20ts]

Depending on what you want to major in, maybe look at CSU Global. I can tell you what the courses are like. I'm enrolled there now. I like that are o midterm or final exams! Yes we write a lot of papers, but I'd rather do that than take exams. I personally feel like I get more out of writing a paper and doing the research verses memorizing a bunch of notecards.

Thank you, I looked into the CSU Global, how many paper your write per course?

Thanks

Depends on the course. There isn't a midterm or final exam. There's weekly quizzes which are 10 questions. Weekly readings. Some weeks you have a paper to write. Most weeks you do. The 7th week you don't because you're supposed to use that time to work on your Portfolio project which is due the 8th week but you have assignments throughout the course to complete it. 

There are 3 trimesters - Fall, Winter, Spring. Each on has 3 terms which are 8 weeks long. 2 terms are back to back. Then there's a term that overlaps by 4 weeks in the middle. THere's a week off in between trimesters not terms. Feel free to PM me with any questions.

[Luiscastaneda25]

Hello Guys, I thought I would provide a little update I applied at WGU, to my surprise only 24 credits transfer which means that I have 80% to complete my degree.

WGU is not as friendly as I thought for transferring. I have 57 credits the advisor told me to finish the class I'm missing for the AS and I will get like 40 transfer credits that way.

I also applied to UW flexible option from my unofficial transcript they said they will be able to take all 57.

Let's wait.

[Ann7]

Hello everyone, thinking about going back to school, I currently have like 60 college credits. Mostly all Gen Ed and Microeconomics  and MacroEconomics 
what school offers competency-based programs:

1. WGU (Western Governor University)
   
2. UW Flexible 
   
3. College for America SNHU 
   
4. NAU Nothern Arizona University 
   
5. Perdue Global
   

any other I'm missing, which one would you choose? I know in this forum you guys focus on the BIG 3, but any other besides the big 3.

I'm newer here but also had investigated the option of NAU and it is my second choice .  I'm going with COSC unless they make even more changes again soon!  I read an article where a mom and her kids all finished their degree at NAU in one 6 month term!   Apparently the Liberal arts degree is the one that made  it possible for them to complete their degrees so fast..  I don't know how many credits they transferred in of course

[Merlin]

Hello Guys, I thought I would provide a little update I applied at WGU, to my surprise only 24 credits transfer which means that I have 80% to complete my degree.

WGU is not as friendly as I thought for transferring. I have 57 credits the advisor told me to finish the class I'm missing for the AS and I will get like 40 transfer credits that way.

I also applied to UW flexible option from my unofficial transcript they said they will be able to take all 57.

Let's wait.

It really depends on which courses you are trying to transfer. If they are coming from an accredited college, all your courses will technically transfer to WGU (or any other college). The rub is in how well they match up with the degree program you're seeking since only courses that match the curriculum taught at the destination college can be applied towards meeting degree requirements. This is a problem at every college, but WGU can be more challenging because of how they structure their degree programs.

Since WGU doesn't offer generalized liberal arts degrees, and they require fewer GenEd courses than most schools, they are a bit harder to align with when transferring credits from a traditional school. They still require the same number of overall credits (120), but half of the traditional GenEds won't have any place at WGU and they require far more credits in their degree core than most US colleges. This is modeled on how degrees are structured in Europe. US degrees are roughly 50% GenEd and 50% core degree, where WGU and European degrees are closer to 25-33% GenEd and 67-75% core degree.

That said, if you're starting with few (or no) credits and you know what degree you want, it is fairly straightforward to figure out what courses you need to take to prepare for a degree from WGU. The WGU transfer guides give you a good guideline on the courses you take from Straighterline or Study.com to match the competencies required by WGU.

WGU is still a good option for people with higher amounts of existing credits, but you are likely to lose some credits in the transfer if you've completed the first couple of years a traditional US college since that is when most people focus on GenEd courses.

[Luiscastaneda25]

Thank you very much,
yes, I was surprised for example that only Microeconomics transfer, but not Macro. also, I took some Business classes in past that they said, unfortunately, I have to take it there.

Do you have a list of classes I can take on Study.com by any chance? I want to keep that option open as well. or it's better to try to master competency in WGU?

I read that sometimes it is better to take the competency classes than going to the route of Study.com.

---

Hello Guys, I thought I would provide a little update I applied at WGU, to my surprise only 24 credits transfer which means that I have 80% to complete my degree.

WGU is not as friendly as I thought for transferring. I have 57 credits the advisor told me to finish the class I'm missing for the AS and I will get like 40 transfer credits that way.

I also applied to UW flexible option from my unofficial transcript they said they will be able to take all 57.

Let's wait.

It really depends on which courses you are trying to transfer. If they are coming from an accredited college, all your courses will technically transfer to WGU (or any other college). The rub is in how well they match up with the degree program you're seeking since only courses that match the curriculum taught at the destination college can be applied towards meeting degree requirements. This is a problem at every college, but WGU can be more challenging because of how they structure their degree programs.

Since WGU doesn't offer generalized liberal arts degrees, and they require fewer GenEd courses than most schools, they are a bit harder to align with when transferring credits from a traditional school. They still require the same number of overall credits (120), but half of the traditional GenEds won't have any place at WGU and they require far more credits in their degree core than most US colleges. This is modeled on how degrees are structured in Europe. US degrees are roughly 50% GenEd and 50% core degree, where WGU and European degrees are closer to 25-33% GenEd and 67-75% core degree.

That said, if you're starting with few (or no) credits and you know what degree you want, it is fairly straightforward to figure out what courses you need to take to prepare for a degree from WGU. The WGU transfer guides give you a good guideline on the courses you take from Straighterline or Study.com to match the competencies required by WGU.

WGU is still a good option for people with higher amounts of existing credits, but you are likely to lose some credits in the transfer if you've completed the first couple of years a traditional US college since that is when most people focus on GenEd courses.

I was able to find the classes:
https://study.com/college/school/western...rsity.html

[Ideas]

I would avoid WGU since they won't take as many credits.

I think a big consideration is if you plan to do a grad certificate or degree. Personally if I knew I was not going to continue in school, I'd want my undergrad degree to be from the best school. So out of the options you listed, I'd figure that I'd go for Purdue Global even though it would cost more.

Another consideration would be if I need a concentration which only some school(s) offer. I believe Purdue only offers a general concentration for their competency-based business degree. I think JFKU has been merged into another school but they were offering concentrations for their undergrad competency-based business degree.

[dbinghamjr]

WGU has a page that shows transfer equivalencies for each degree: https://partners.wgu.edu/

The "general transfer guidelines" also includes how some certifications transfer over (mostly IT, but Project+ and SHRM certs can apply to business degrees).

Their subreddit is also pretty active, if you search the course number you can usually find at least one or two people's study plans. I've even found some pretty detailed guides for how to finish a course in 1-3 days.

[Merlin]

Do you have a list of classes I can take on Study.com by any chance? I want to keep that option open as well. or it's better to try to master competency in WGU?

---

I was able to find the classes:
https://study.com/college/school/western...rsity.html

That list is a good place to start, but you should look up the transfer guide for your specific chosen degree program at https://partners.wgu.edu (see the prior poster's comment for additional details) to make sure you map the right courses to the right degree. WGU does make changes to their degree programs now and then, so you should always defer to the WGU transfer guide as the first source of truth. The study.com transfer guide is useful but probably doesn't get updated as often.

I read that sometimes it is better to take the competency classes than going to the route of Study.com.

Yes and no. It depends on how many credits you're transferring, how fast you complete courses, and whether you're paying your own way or not.

If you're paying your own way, the least expensive option is to take courses from places like Sophia, StraighterLine, Study.com, etc. and transfer 90 credits into WGU. This leaves a balance of 30 credits (10 courses) to complete your degree, making it much easier to finish in a single term (you only need to complete one class every 2-3 weeks). This means you only have to pay that $3,500 tuition once. You'd have to complete 106 credits per term (~6 courses per month) at WGU for the average cost per credit to equal the ~$33/credit you pay for courses from ACE providers.

If someone else is paying your way (grants, loans, company tuition assistance, etc.) then cost isn't the biggest factor. While there are exceptions (university math courses appear to be harder, for example), people can complete classes at WGU at roughly the same rate as at SL or SDC. As with all competency-based coursework, subjects you have familiarity with go faster than those you know little about. So, if you can complete 3 courses a month at StraighterLine, you can probably do the same at WGU... except perhaps for the degree capstone which can take 3X as long as a normal course.

You'll need to look at how many courses you need to finish up a degree, how quickly you can complete them, and the length of your financial runway to see which approach makes more sense. Personally, I pay my own way, so I would prefer to transfer in as many courses as I can to ensure to only have to pay WGU once. Plus that means I won't be as pressed for time as I would be if I were taking all my courses from WGU directly.

Of course, as Ideas said, if UW is willing to apply all of your transfer credits you may want to go there instead--assuming everything else is equal. I don't know anything about that program, so you need to judge how it compares from a cost and time perspective.

Also keep in mind that completing an associate's degree first will often mean the target school will waive all your GenEd requirements as a block transfer. At least it does at WGU. So you may want to finish that before enrolling with either school.

[Luiscastaneda25]

Hello Everyone a little update, Interesting UW FLEX is taking 68 Credits. more than what I have because of the Spanish CLEP above 63 counts as 16 credits. I was shocked.

anyways, their GRE (general required credits) is 45 instead. but they are able to match it to different classes not like WGU that the class has to match the name as well. The process is a little slow, but I like the model of competency-based. The price is higher than WGU at 2,250 per term a year will cost roughly $9,000. The ASC can estimate me to finish in 1.5 years. most students finish 7 months early.

[Merlin]

Hello Everyone a little update, Interesting UW FLEX is taking 68 Credits. more than what I have because of the Spanish CLEP above 63 counts as 16 credits. I was shocked.

anyways, their GRE (general required credits) is 45 instead. but they are able to match it to different classes not like WGU that the class has to match the name as well. The process is a little slow, but I like the model of competency-based. The price is higher than WGU at 2,250 per term a year will cost roughly $9,000. The ASC can estimate me to finish in 1.5 years. most students finish 7 months early.

It sounds like you've figured out your path then. Good luck!