Newbie Help Please

[PMartinez]

I was wondering if anyone could help point me in right direction.

I am interested in becoming a Police Officer and in my state 60 college credits are required. After speaking to recruiter, any 60 credits are fine. Although I would be interetsed in progressing towards a degree in the future, my main focus is getting these 60 credits.

Ive tried reading through the forum but I seem to be getting more confused the more I read.

As far as I know there are 3 tests I can take (CLEP DSST Dantes?) and 3 main online schools that everyone prefers for getting credits from these tests.

What would be the easiest route to getting the credits? I can pass the Spanish CLEP with my eyes closed so I only need to worry about 48 credits.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank You.

[ShotoJuku]

Just curious as to what State you live in?

[PMartinez]

New York City, NY

[mlwilliamsiv]

Hello PMartinez and Welcome 2 InstantCert!

I'd be glad to help you. Since you live in New York I'd suggest that you go through Excelsior College because they are cheaper than TESC. It will cost you $75 for the application and the enrollment fee is $895 and they do offer payment plans.

However, I would not suggest you enroll right off the bat. As far as the quickest degree to earn, I personally would suggest you do the Associate in Science Degree. Because I believe this to be the most flexible of the degrees. You can completely "test out" of this degree without taking any Excelsior courses.

Just let me know what your subject interests are and I will send you a sample degree plan for you to follow. Oh and just for the record....DSST and DANTES are the exact same thing. You've already mentioned that you are proficient in Spanish so you can earn 12 credits with no problem...that's cool...just leaves you with 48 to go.

If you don't already have them, I included the links to the CLEP Exam List; DSST Exam List; and Excelsior's Credit Catalog for CLEP/DSST (pg. 21-25).

Like I said, let me know what your interests are and I will tailor a degree plan for you and attach it on this forum.

If you need anything else, just let us know.

Here are the links:

https://www.excelsior.edu/Excelsior_Coll...atalog.pdf

http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloa...scores.pdf

DSST - GetCollegeCredit.com (DSST)

From a loyal degree seeker,

[PMartinez]

Business Degree sounds best for me.

How does the actually process work after passing a test? Do I then report it to Excelsior College? I read somewhere about only having 6 months or something like for it to be valid? I may be wrong.

Thanks for the quick response.

[wb.john]

If you're really good at Spanish you could take the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Test for another 12 credits in that area. (Does not overlap with the CLEP, I believe)

CLEP A&I Lit, UEX College Writing, CLEP History, the NFA courses are all very easy and add another 18 credits.

That leaves just 18 credits.

If you want to do the AS degree, you'll need at least 6 math credits too, so you could do CLEP College Mathematics (much quicker), or two courses with ALEKS.

The 12 remaining credits are up to you. Just choose 4 exams which you think will be easy for you.

If you are enrolled at Excelsior College, then you can choose to have CLEP send them a transcript when you take the exam. If you are not enrolled when you take the exam you will need to put in a request for them to send a transcript to EC, which costs $20.

[ShotoJuku]

New York City, NY

I'm a graduate of the NYPD Academy of nearly 30 years ago and I had no idea that they now required 60 credits.

[PMartinez]

After much thinking, I am leaning more towards taking all the easiest CLEP/DSST to accumulate the required 60 credits for the NYPD first, then working on specific exams needed to meet degree requirements.

Am I able to take as many tests as I want and get credit for all of them regardless of degree requirements? (regarding EC)

Are there specific threads here explaining NFA, FEMA, Aleks? I used search but was only getting little bits of info here and there.

Thanks in advance.

[Tasman]

There are about 60 pages of aleks info:ack:

[operalady]

Business Degree sounds best for me.

How does the actually process work after passing a test? Do I then report it to Excelsior College? I read somewhere about only having 6 months or something like for it to be valid? I may be wrong.

Thanks for the quick response.

I have no experience with Excelsior but as far as the CLEP and DSST exams go you have the option to not report the score to a school and just "bank" the credits and they stay on file with CLEP ect for 20 years, then you can pay the $20 to send the credits to your end point college.

On the subject of easy exams, what are your strengths?

For me, humanities exams are easy (except for foreign languages), and I do well with histories, but not math and science. But there are several exams that have crossover material so they are easier. My kids and I went thru a business exam series, a humanities series and a history series. First you want to know your strengths, then find out which exams to take in that area, in what order (a huge time saver).

If your end point college accepts FEMAs they are the easiest credits around. My son, daughter and husband have each taken 7 credits worth in less than a week.