Portfolios at Excelsior or TESC in Music

[dbarnes]

This is my first post and I wanted to thank all of you for sharing your experiences. I am embarking on a seemingly impossible task at my age (61) and am anxious to get started.

I'm currently weighing my options and I have no doubt that despite the warnings I've received from a couple of people here, I will need to do some portfolio assessments to get any credits for a great deal of my knowledge.

In particular, I have a very long background in the music business including playing, composing, arranging and recording, all of it documented. Has anyone here ever managed to get many credits for that sort of experience?

For that matter, what if any are your experiences with the portfolio/personal assessments at any of the big 3?

Thanks in advance,
David

[barcotta]

This is my first post and I wanted to thank all of you for sharing your experiences. I am embarking on a seemingly impossible task at my age (61) and am anxious to get started.

I'm currently weighing my options and I have no doubt that despite the warnings I've received from a couple of people here, I will need to do some portfolio assessments to get any credits for a great deal of my knowledge.

In particular, I have a very long background in the music business including playing, composing, arranging and recording, all of it documented. Has anyone here ever managed to get many credits for that sort of experience?

For that matter, what if any are your experiences with the portfolio/personal assessments at any of the big 3?

Thanks in advance,
David

Hey David. Welcome to the forum. Congratulations on your decision to pursue a degree. I received my BS in General Business from Excelsior last year. It took me about 14 months. I am also a musician and, when I began my pursuit of this degree, I also had no doubt that I would need some portfolio assessment. However, my research revealed the following:

Cost of portfolio assessment: $$$
Cost of CLEP/DSST exams: $

Time commitment for portfolio assessment: A lot
Time commitment for CLEP/DSST prep: small and flexible

Certainty of outcome of portfolio assessment: Unknown
Certainty of outcome of CLEP/DSST: Absolute

Number of people you have to hassle to create your portfolio: At least 3
Number of people you have to hassle to take a CLEP/DSST exam: 0

I could go on but it sounds like you've read some posts here so you probably already knew some or all of this. Now--once I realized that I would have to equate my existing music knowledge with an existing college course at some college--put together some written and recorded product to convince some unknown person that I knew everything taught in that course I found--find two or three people to "vouch" for me--pay for a course to learn how to put the portfolio together and then pay for the credits if I was fortunate enough to be successful--I decided that there had to be a better way.

In fact, the example that Excelsior gives when describing the portfolio process is Human Resource Management. They say that if you've created a Policy and Procedure Manual, that's a good basis for credit. They even give you a little blueprint based on that scenario. I have, in fact, written a Policy and Procedure Manual. I still decided that it would be WAY easier and WAY faster with a MUCH more certain outcome to take the exam.

However, I did want to convert my music knowledge to college credit so I went straight to the horse's mouth--or, in this case, my local community college. I used their credit-by-exam program to test out of twelve (12) credits in two days. Almost a semester. You can read about it here.

In the time that it's taken me to write this post--I could already be 25% of the way there in preparing to take the CLEP Sociology exam using Instant Cert. To fairly decide the best route for yourself, I suggest the following:

Sign up for InstantCert and study for the CLEP Sociology exam (assuming you haven't already taken the class). Study for 3-6 days, use the Specific Exam Feedback section for reference and go take the exam. THEN you can decide how much effort you want to put into portfolio assessment.

Let's assume that you can actually rack up 30 credits via portfolio assessment. Sounds like a lot, right? Well--it is--but it's really 10 CLEP exams--less if you take some of the six credit exams. If you average 2-3 per week--you'll have 30 credits in a month. Aaahhh...if I only knew then what I know now...

You can click on the links in my signature below to find out more about my pursuit if you're interested. Good luck!

[dbarnes]

Thanks Michael,

I suspect that is really sound advice. I will look at your other posts and I may have some questions for you. But at this point I am quite sure I'm going to enroll at Excelsior. I'm shooting for an eventual degree from the University of Oklahoma, and they want to see letter grades at the College of Liberal Studies. Not that they're mandatory, but they are at the very least preferred.

David

[marianne202]

David,

You may want to look at the DSST exams, as Excelsior will still award credit and a letter grade for some of those exams. Just a thought. Also I will throw my ring in the hat and say that Excelsior and COSC both discouraged me from trying to do a portfolio assessment for my work experience in health care and teaching. They said that unless I had real tangible proof ie: the HR manual, it would be near impossible to get credit for it. I also believe that they would only assign the credit as pass/fail, so you still wouldn't get a letter grade or GPA assignment with the credit. I think the idea of doing the credit by exam at your local school is a great option that I also considered. In the long run I just did the exams and am moving forward. At 45 I wasn't about to spin my wheels and waste time and money. The exams were a sure thing. I gathered from both schools that they really must not award much credit through the assessment due to such tight restrictions. Just my 2 cents for what little they are worth now days! Good luck on your journey! You will find lots of great info and support here!

[dbarnes]

Thanks Marianne.

I think it would be foolish of me to ignore so many voices echoing the same sentiments. I've just about decided on Excelsior for a couple of reasons, and I will at least probably talk to them about it.

Without going into too much detail, rock-solid documentation of my music accomplishments and mapping many of them to existing courses at accredited universities and colleges would not be a problem. But I do understand that even given all that, it's a risk that might not be worth the investment in time.

I had a great meeting with a representative from the University of Oklahoma's College of Liberal Studies today, and from what I can tell, if a particular test, or certification is recommended for credit by ACE, OU will accept it. But it sounded to me like it would be much easier if all of the varied sources of credit were gathered together on one transcript, especially if some of them carried letter grades.

I am not familiar with the DSST exams, but I intend to become familiar with them. It seems their the only ones who at least still award letter grades for DSST exams.

I'm very new to this and will learn as I go. I'm just trying to make an informed start so that I don't waste any more time than necessary. If it turns out that PLAs don't make sense, I don't have a problem with that. And I'd rather find it out sooner than later.

Thanks again,
David

[peace123]

I recently submitted a portfolio for 6 credits and when it is reviewed I will let you know how the whole process is.

For now you should know that at Excelsior in order to submit a portfolio you have to take their 3 credit course CCS*201 Introduction to Prior Learning & Portfolio Development ( or a similar course from another RA school).

This course does a great job in preparing you for completing your portfolio and I learned much about different types of learning, I enjoyed the 8 week class.
(It is graded on a pass/fail basis.)

This should bring you to a back issue of Live & Learn that has an article on one persons experience with a portfolio at Excelsior
https://www.excelsior.edu/Excelsior_Coll...r_2007.pdf


Peace123

[dbarnes]

A wonderful post Peace123!

I will read the suggested article. And please do let me know about the outcome of portfolio. I actually took a portfolio course at Oklahoma City Univeristy and made an A in it. In fact, as part of that course we developed a complete portfolio. So I have one ready to go.

David

[Joel]

IMO, the biggest downfall to the portfolio assessment is the cost.

Even if you have already taken a portfolio assessment course, you'll have to pay for each credit that they do grant you. Let's say EC gives you 6 credits for your music experience. You'll end up with 6 Humanities credits at a cost of $1890. Instead, you could take the 6 credit Humanities CLEP exam and get the same result for $70-100 depending on the testing fee.

No brainer if you ask me.

[peace123]

IMO, the biggest downfall to the portfolio assessment is the cost.

Even if you have already taken a portfolio assessment course, you'll have to pay for each credit that they do grant you. Let's say EC gives you 6 credits for your music experience. You'll end up with 6 Humanities credits at a cost of $1890. Instead, you could take the 6 credit Humanities CLEP exam and get the same result for $70-100 depending on the testing fee.

No brainer if you ask me.

Actually the cost per credit attempted is $95 per credit attempted. You pay it up front , regardless of being granted the credit.

So the cost is the 3 credit course cost ( 315 x 3= 945 ) and if you do a portfolio of 6 credits ( 95 x 6= 570 ) , total cost ( including the 3 credit course) is $1515 . Since you already have the class, your cost would be $95 per credit attempted.

To submit a portfolio , minimum credit attempted is 6, and there is no maximum number you can attempt.



peace123

[dbarnes]

Thanks Peace123,

I thought I'd read that the cost per credit hour for the portfolio was less than the class itself. I'm really anxious to hear more about your experience. I read the article in Live & Learn to which you referred and it sounds like a very arduous process. It could be that those who are championing testing are right; for most people.

In my case, I would really like to have the music degree, and I don't know if I can get very excited about going back and memorizing a lot of theory. But who knows, it still might be easier.

I don't see much on the forums about portfolios so I guess it has not proven to be a very popular option. Again, I'm very anxious to hear about your results. And thanks again for you advice.

David