Forensic Biology courses for my sister?

[alissaroot]

I just got off the phone with my sister, and she is contemplating going back to school for a bachelor degree in forensic science. Problem is, we live in a college dead zone. It's an hour drive to any campus in any direction. She's willing to make the trip, but I almost have her convinced to CLEP out of her general education requirements. She plans on attending IUPUI. Does anyone know of any distance learning options for this field? Here's the curriculum: http://www.forensic.iupui.edu/program/dl...et_bio.pdf Help finding any of these courses would be great, since she works full time it would be difficult for her to drive back and forth for all of these.

I hope to be able to put a plan together for her so she can complete this in three years or less. She already has an associate degree in business from Harrison College, but unfortunately it is not RA so we think it's unlikely any of her credits will transfer.

I found a page that outlines some CLEPs they will accept, http://scs.indiana.edu/pdf/clep_exams.pdf but I am not clear as to whether or not they will accept them toward anything other than general studies degrees, and I can't find a chart for DSSTs at all. If anyone can help me figure out their CLEP policy, I'd be grateful.

Please help! I really want to help my sister and I'm just so excited that she's going back to school!

[Old Rusty Pipe]

B.S. in Criminal Justice and Forensic Science from Duquesne University:
Accelerated Bachelor's Degree - School of Leadership - Duquesne University

B.S. in Criminal Justice with a concentration in Forensic Science from AIU:
Online Forensic Science Degree - AIU

There are also some other possible options here:
DANTES Online Catalog

[alissaroot]

O.R.P., you are brilliant. I'm looking into these right now. The DANTES external degree catalog is fantastic, consider it bookmarked. I see there that National University has a master's degree in forensic science, I'm definitely going to send her that link. That list is awesome! Maybe I could suggest to her a B.S in Natural Science/Mathematics from TESC and then the National University Master's degree...?

It looks to me like all she can CLEP at IUPUI would be CLEP Humanities and CLEP Western Civ. II. IUPUI won't take CLEP English Comp., I think. I'm still looking into this, so don't hold me to that. I think she wants to take Public Speaking instead of taking the DSST since forensic scientists are often required to testify in court, so she wants to develop her communication skills for that reason. Maybe DSST Intro to Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice? Even two or three CLEPs would still be a great time and cost savings, considering how many tough classes she is looking at and that this degree program is 124 hours. I want to encourage her to CLEP Biology and Chemistry...you know she took AP Chemistry and AP English in high school but didn't take the exams at the end of the year? It just sucks, since IUPUI takes AP! But since it's been nine years since high school, and I'm not sure IUPUI will look kindly on her testing out of the courses within her major. It looks like any courses taken as Pass/Fail won't apply to the major there anyway.

I'm still open to any suggestions or feedback for this degree program, so if anyone else has any suggestions, please chime in!

Thanks in advance for any replies!

[Old Rusty Pipe]

Duquesne University has a pretty good program in place. They are expensive though, coming in at around $638 per semester hour. They accept up to 60 credits of CLEP, and I'm pretty sure they will also take DSST and Excelsior Exams. They do deal with the military afterall.

I've only taken grad courses with them, but I find their Blackboard course setups to be pretty good. I have yet to take a single multiple choice test, but I can't say if that is true for all of their courses. They are rated very well by Newsweek every year.

I'd highly recommend the school, even with the cost being what it is. I'm not sure how well AIU is, but your sister will get a quality education with Duquesne Univeristy.

Just one student's opinion.